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LIFE AND LETTERS 
OF 


THOMAS JEFFERSON 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


NEW YORK + BOSTON - CHICAGO + DALLAS 
ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CO., LimitEep 


LONDON + BOMBAY + CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lt». 
TORONTO 











LIFE AND LETTERS 


OF 


THOMAS JEFFERSON 


BY 


FRANCIS W. a 


‘HIRST 


Net Pork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1926 


All rights reserved 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


COPYRIGHT, 1926, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 





Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1926. 


Norwood ress 
J. 8. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 


PREFATORY NOTE 


On taking leave of my proofs I recall with gratitude generous 
assistance from many quarters in America. I would particularly 
mention my friend Charles C. Burlingham of New York, who first 
introduced me to American politics and American hospitality. Nor 
can I forget the obligations I am under to Mr. John Stewart Bryan and 
Mr. F. W. Scott of Richmond, Virginia, or to Dr. Lyon G. Tyler, Dr. 
Edwin Alderman and Dr. J. A. C. Chandler, who all abound in Jefferso- 
nian lore. During most of the time I have had the aid of a most efficient 
secretary, Miss Lucy Wilcox, now Mrs. W. F. Adams. To my wife, and 
to my sister Gertrude M. Hirst of Barnard College, Columbia Uni- 
versity, I owe constant help and encouragement. 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 


INTRODUCTION . : ; : : ; : , h HM gee 4 

BOOK I 

CHAPTER ; 

CoLoniAL VIRGINIA AND JEFFERSON’S BoyHoop . i I 
LigeeATGOLLEGE |}, , : ; : : ; f WARN 6 
III. Srupent oF Law . ; ; Byte, 
IV. Barrister AND PoLitTiciaAN, 1767 TO 1773. ; DANO Be 
V. Tue Ricuts anp Wroncs oF AMERICA. : ; IA ests 
VI. Tue Repiies to Lorp Norty — War Becins—1775. 82 
VII. Tue DeciaraTIOn OF INDEPENDENCE . ‘ : CE TOO 

BOOK II 


REFORMER AND GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA 


I. JeFFERSON’s REFoRMsS, 1776-1779 . 
II. Governor or VirGciniA JUNE, 1779 TO JUNE, 1781 ita 
III. Notes on Vircinia. JEFFERSON WRITES A Book AND 


ESTABLISHES A CURRENCY . é ; : Wert or 
BOOK III 
AMERICAN MINISTER IN FRANCE 
I. Diplomat AND TRAVELLER. . ; : } Te aOd 
IJ. Tue Frencu ReEvotuTion . ; : f ! NN aed 
IJ. Tue American ConstITuTION Nees ae Uo ts NEL Wyo. 


[ vil | 


Contents 


BOOK IV 
OFFICE UNDER PRESIDENT WASHINGTON 
CHAPTER PAGE 
I. SECRETARY OF STATE é : : : : : mee 
IJ. THe QuaRREL WITH ALEXANDER HAMILTON . ‘ 4264 
III. Pusric Crepir AnD War Depts . ; : : Pe ie 
IV. Jerrerson’s Foreicn Poticy . : ; c : aioe 
BOOK V 
PRINCIPLES AND PARTIES 
I. In RETIREMENT : : . é 4 : ees 
IJ. RepusiicanisM AT Bay . : ‘ ; : : a 399 
BOOK VI 
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
I. Jerrerson’s First ADMINISTRATION : : : . 376 
II. JEFFERSON’s SECOND ADMINISTRATION — 1805-1809 + 405 
II]. American TRADE WITH ENGLAND . : : ; nity: 
BOOK VII | 
LAST YEARS AT MONTICELLO 
I. Tue Mapison ADMINISTRATIONS — 1809-1817 : 2-446 
II. Monticetto anp Its Lisprary : ‘ - 494 
III. Tue Monroe ApMinistRATIONS — 1817 TO 1825 . ACE 
IV. Jerrerson Founps THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA . she 3 
V. Tue Curtain Fats ; A : 4 4 ; oy 


INDEX y & 2 : “ : 3 J : 570 


[ viii | 


IST OF) ILLUSTRATIONS 


Thomas Jefferson . : ; Frontispiece 
FACING PAGE 
Map of Virginia : ; 2 
Patrick Henry . : i : : : 4 , anny 34 
Edmund Burke , ; : : : : nS S 
George Washington . ! ; : GT 
Thomas Paine . : , : : ; WuLO4 
Declaration of Independence . wahoo 
Statue of Thomas Jefferson in the eke tel, Rich- 
mond . : : ; nea 0 
Marquis de Tee ; ; ; LTO 
Benjamin Franklin . : S204 
John Adams . : : 208 
Alexander Hamilton 20a 
Joseph Priestley : ; ; . 400 
James Madison : : : . 446 
Monticello — Residence . Thomas Jefferson . ' 404 
James Monroe . : ; : : - a i 


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INTRODUCTION 


On July 4th 1926 a century will have elapsed since Jef- 
ferson’s death at Monticello, and more than 183 years 
since he first saw the light in a farmhouse not far away on 
the same estate. No new biography is needed to emblazon 
his name on the roll of fame. Among the founders of the 
Great Republic the statesman who wrote the Declaration 
of Independence and added Louisiana to the Union can 
never be forgotten. As reformer of its laws and founder of 
its University his name stands first among the citizens and 
benefactors of-Virginia. To those who, in spite of failures 
and disappointments, still rest their hopes of peaceful and 
civilized progress on representative government and popu- 
lar education, Jefferson is a prophet, and more than a 
prophet. By those who believe that the success of demo- 
cratic institutions and the establishment of good will 
between nations and classes depend on a wide dissemina- 
tion of liberal ideas, the author of the Statute of Religious 
Freedom and the successful opponent of the sedition laws 
will be deemed not unworthy of a place beside Milton and 
Hampden and other heroic men who down to our own 
times have withstood the tyranny of priest, soldier, 
monarch, or bureaucrat. Those again who love republican 
frugality and simplicity, who wish their ministers to be 
thrifty stewards of public money, and would equalise 
opportunity, partly by a just system of taxation, partly 
by judicious expenditure on public health and education, 
will learn alike from the precepts and practice of Jefferson 


[ xi] 


Introduction 


that no one — not even a Peel, a Cobden, or a Gladstone 
— did more to graft these fruitful aims and golden rules of 
administration upon a new Democracy. 

It were unprofitable and ungracious to weigh Jefferson’s 
services to mankind and to America against those of Wash- 
ington or Lincoln. Nor can their characters and talents be 
compared, though each owes his renown in large measure 
to a happy union of Patience, Perseverance and Forti- 
tude. To the student of political philosophy Jefferson is 
the most interesting of all American statesmen, because he 
combined with a marvellous insight into the springs of 
human nature, and into the motives that sway individuals 
or masses, an extensive knowledge of political science and 
history. He was a theorist, a doctrinaire, an idealist, but 
always at school with experience. If the charge that he 
was too ambitious be true — and without a spice of am- 
bition how few men of genius would be found to climb the 
slippery ladder of politics ? — then nothing in his career 
is more astonishing than his constant loyalty to causes, 
which at times seemed lost, and to a form of religion which 
exposed him to the fury and intolerant fanaticism of 
orthodoxy at moments when political prudence would have 
counselled, if not conformity with received opinion, at 
least a quiet and unobtrusive reticence. But his convic- 
tions on moral and religious questions were so deeply en- 
trenched, and were supported by a moral courage so proud 
and indomitable, that he preferred obloquy to compro- 
mise. His tenacity was equally marked in private and 
public life. It was observed of him that he never aban- 
doned a plan, a principle or a friend. Of his extraordinary 
versatility — his scientific attainments, his wide scholar- 
ship and learning, his skill in mechanics and architecture, 
his almost universal curiosity —we shall find many 

[ xii | 


Introduction 


illustrations. And with this rare assemblage of qualities 
and talents were blended a passionate love of home and 
family and a genius for friendship, which make him one 
of the most lovable characters among modern statesmen. 

It remains to explain why I have attempted to draw his 
portrait and paint anew the scenes and scenery of his life. 

For some reason, not easy to understand, no Englishman 
has ever written a biography of Jefferson. Yet Great 
Britain has at least a share in him. He was of British 
stock — without a drop, so far as we know, of foreign 
blood in his veins. He was born and bred a British citizen, 
and remained one for 33 years. But for George the Third 
there is no reason to suppose that Thomas Jefferson would 
ever have had cause to change his allegiance. 

The qualities of Washington, Jefferson and John Adams 
were truly English; their stubborn love of liberty and 
independence had been transplanted from England; they 
were inspired by the same principles which had been 
asserted by Pym and Hampden and were to be reasserted 
by the Reformers of 1832. Jefferson’s theories of law and 
government were derived, as we shall see, not from Rous- 
seau or any French source but from Coke and Algernon 
Sydney and John Locke. 

My own interest in Jefferson goes back to the second 
Hague Conference, when Lord Chancellor Loreburn asked 
me to trace out for him the history of sea law in time of 
war. I then discovered how Jefferson helped Benjamin 
Franklin to negotiate the first Treaty which embodied 
the doctrine of Freedom of the Seas and protected peaceful 
commerce from capture or destruction by naval captains 
and privateers. 

But it was a visit to Virginia in 1921, when I saw Monti- 
cello and Williamsburg and the University of Virginia, and 

[ xiii 


Introduction 


came in contact with the oral tradition, which still speaks 
of ‘Mr Jefferson’ as if he were alive, that prompted me to 
undertake a new study of his life and writings. I found 
ample material. The first important Life of Jefferson (in 
two volumes, 1836) was written by George Tucker with 
the familiar knowledge and discriminating sympathy of a 
philosopher friend. It is dedicated to James Madison, who 
had read the proof sheets in the last year of his life. That 
of Henry S. Randall in three volumes (1858), covering 
some two thousand pages, constitutes the official bi- 
ography. Painstaking, accurate, zealous, untiring in the 
pursuit of facts or the investigation of error, Randall 
supplied, with the assistance of Jefferson’s family, not 
only a narrative of his hero’s life but a valuable commen- 
tary on the characters and doings of his political con- 
temporaries. But the generation for which Randall wrote 
has passed away. Sentiment and taste in letters as well 
as in politics have changed. His style, always copious, 
often redundant, and sometimes turgid, is an obstacle to 
the modern reader. His digressions are too frequent and 
not always too relevant. His footnotes and appendices 
are of longitude immense; and the ordinary reader is as 
likely to reach the last chapter of Randall’s Jefferson as 
the last book of Spenser’s Faerie Queen. Parton’s Life is 
less verbose and more readable, but also less accurate than 
its predecessors. Written for the American public more 
than half a century ago it presents us with a lively but in 
some respects obsolete rendering of Jefferson’s character 
and career. From a perusal of some later productions Iam 
led to suppose that, when a dyspeptic author has a grudge 
against Jefferson, he relieves his feelings by writing a Life. 
But the latest of them, by Professor David Muzzey, is a 
marked exception. It is a masterly historical study, which 
[ xiv ] 


Introduction 


places the figure of Jefferson in fair perspective. In record- 
ing my obligations I may add that I have drawn mainly 
on Jefferson’s own writings and letters —a vast store- 
house — for the elucidation of his life and opinions. The 
Memorial Edition, the largest and latest collection, in 
twenty volumes, supplies a quantity of material which 
was not available to Randall and has hardly been used at 
all since it appeared in 1907. Unfortunately its arrange- 
ment is clumsy and even chaotic, and the text is defaced by 
errors of all descriptions, contrasting in this respect with 
the scholarly accuracy of Ford’s edition. 

On returning from America I consulted the late Lord 
Morley, for whom, in preparation for his Life of Gladstone, 
I had sifted the archives at Hawarden Castle and at the 
same time learnt, I hope, something of the art of biog- 
raphy. He expressed a keen interest in my project, and 
gave me very practical encouragement by recommending 
the book in advance to his friend Sir Frederick Macmillan. 

It is my hope that this new presentation will serve to 
correct some misapprehensions of Jefferson which are still 
current in popular histories, educational primers, and even 
in such monographs as Dr Eckenrode’s recent account of 
the Revolution in Virginia. By English writers Jefferson 
has been strangely neglected. Yet, apart from the origi- 
nality of his contributions to political and economic ideas, 
his sway over American Democracy is unquestioned. No 
one can understand the currents and cross currents of 
public life in the United States, or the constitutional con- 
troversies which have agitated parties since the Union, if 
he ignores Jefferson. For such an ascendancy there is no 
parallel in English politics. To match Jefferson you would 
have to roll Bentham, Cobden and Gladstone into one. An 
American professor of history —not a Jeffersonian — 

[ xv | 


Introduction 


once said to me that Jefferson influenced American opin- 
ion more than all the other Presidents put together. 

It is perhaps unfortunate for Jefferson that he was 
pitted against Alexander Hamilton; for some of Hamil- 
ton’s admirers on both sides of the Atlantic seem to think 
that their idolatry is incomplete until they have mauled 
and mangled his chief adversary. For Englishmen almost 
the only modern portrait of Jefferson has been furnished 
in this way by Mr F. S. Oliver to embellish his well known 
essay on Alexander Hamilton. From this caricature, or 
travesty, I have had the curiosity to pick out a few gems 
by way of example and warning. It is indeed a queer 
assortment of contradictory epithets, an impossible mo- 
saic of black and white. In one place Jefferson appears 
as ‘a citizen who served his country with ungrudging 
labour for close on half a century’, and as ‘one of the 
most remarkable figures in history’. Elsewhere he is 
described as the ‘last of the giants’; but then we are 
distressed to learn that our giant’s statesmanship 
was ‘singularly barren’, and that his actual achieve- 
ment was almost ‘negligible’. In another passage Mr 
Oliver finds it hard not to rate the last of the giants as ‘a 
mere mountebank, whose title to fame consists not in the 
value of his work but in the skill with which he imposed 
upon his own day and generation’. After this comes the 
surprising intelligence that Jefferson was absolutely sincere 
in his belief in the common people and in their capacity for 
self government. These beliefs and opinions, we are told, 
were ‘more to him than religion’, and he was ‘haunted by 
a sense of duty’ which compelled him to safe guard them; 
yet these same beliefs and opinions ‘never at any point 
touched a firm bottom but merely swam like a kind of 
“sud” upon the stream of expediency ’. 

[ xvi | 


Introduction 


On looking at the portraits of Jefferson Mr Oliver found 
in all of them dignity and most of them kindliness. Never- 
theless Jefferson is described elsewhere as ‘cruel’, and as 
one who while professing philanthropy, was ‘vindictive 
and at times ferocious’. When his opinions proved to be 
unpopular ‘he was at considerable pains to conceal them 
from his countrymen’. Often he is depicted as a hypocrite, 
a dupe, a half-conscious impostor, or a mere demagogue 
whose one consuming ambition is to attain power by gain- 
ing popular favour. We are even asked to believe that ‘he 
hated minorities, and hated even more to be in a minority’. 
Yet in one of these purple patches his success is attributed 
to a sincere and quixotic pursuit of ideals! 

If Jefferson is ‘a kind of Don Quixote’, he is a very 
peculiar variety of the species; for he is portrayed as ‘un- 
chivalrous’, as, ‘a shrinking antagonist’, who ‘never 
fought in the open when he could avoid it’, as ‘absolutely 
without candour, and as one who held no opinion so firmly 
that he would risk unpopularity to achieve it’. 

Yet as a statesman he had some good qualities, or 
qualities which in a good man might have been serviceable 
to the public. For example ‘he made no attempt at 
bribery. He did not offer doles, and never hinted at 
spoliation. There was no grossness in his methods’. He 
believed in humanity; ‘his love of the masses was sincere, 
and his faith in them was constant’. All through the 
revolutionary epoch ‘his sympathy never wavered, his 
hope never failed’. But a page or two after this eulogium 
it appears that his one sincere belief was that the voice of 
the people is the voice of God, and his one ambition ‘to 
keep himself poised at the top of the wave’. 

That a man who has to be represented throughout the 
essay as naturally destitute not only of moral but of 

[ xvi | 


Introduction 


physical courage, should have been a bold horseman is a 
little puzzling. But Mr Oliver has no doubt that in every 
other sphere, and in all his dealings with men as distinct 
from horses, Jefferson was ‘timorous and unready’. In 
controversy he is painted by this amiable writer as ‘never 
taking blows without a whine’. 

On the intellectual side, we read, ‘no statesman has 
excelled him, and very few in the whole history of the 
world have equalled Jefferson in observation’; yet (after a 
gap of seventy pages) we are informed that, with alto- 
gether exceptional opportunities for observation of the 
beginnings of the French Revolution he saw nothing; the 
profound movements ‘were concealed from his gaze’. 
Whether Jefferson was naturally a liar is not quite clear 
to Mr Oliver; but a timid disposition —so we are in- 
formed — ‘led him constantly into situations from which 
he chose to escape by some mean device, or on some dis- 
ingenuous plea, or even by plain untruth’. Being ‘abso- 
lutely without candour’ and a ‘worshipper of words’, a 
sophist who detested reason and a ‘weaver of fanciful 
philosophies’, no Oliverian can be surprised that Jef- 
ferson ‘in the end died as he had lived in the odour of 
phrases’. 

One might go on multiplying incongruities. The vo- 
cabulary of malevolence seems to be inexhaustible. 
But the book has had so wide a circulation that I could not 
refrain from noticing it; and if the quotations are not in 
themselves their own sufficient condemnation, I shall trust 
that, whatever else my own book may achieve, it will at 
least relegate Mr Oliver’s account of Jefferson to the realm 
of fiction. 


[ xvii | 


ETIPE AND UCETTERS 
OF 


THOMAS JEFFERSON 


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LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 


BOOK I 
CHAP LE RET 


COLONIAL VIRGINIA AND JEFFERSON'S BOYHOOD 


“Consider likewise what commodities the soil where the Plantation 
is doth naturally yield, that they may someway help to defray the 
charge of the plantation, as it hath fared with tobacco in Virginia.” 

— Bacon (1625) 


climate, and wishing to gratify a taste for history, 
romance, and natural scenery, not without sport by 
land and water, were offered a year’s residence in any one 
of the forty-eight states which compose the American 
Union, his choice would very likely fall on Virginia. 
Virginia was the first planted of all the English colonies 
in North America. Projected by Sir Walter Raleigh and 
named by the Virgin Queen, its origins recall a golden age 
of poetry and adventure — the spacious days of great 
Elizabeth — when Shakespeare was an English play- 
wright, Bacon an English lawyer, and Drake an English 
sea captain. The first Virginian settlers, led by the val- 
jant Captain John Smith, and financed by a London Com- 
pany, could remember England in the glorious year of 
1588, 
“When that great fleet invincible against her bore in vain 
The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain.” 


[1] 


if an Englishman, seeking good society in an agreeable 


Thomas Jefferson 


In Colonial antiquities and historic associations Vir- 
ginia’s only rivals are the New England States. The Old 
Dominion had become flourishing and fractious, while 
New York was still a Dutch village, and before Philadel- 
phia was laid out or even planned. The names of Patrick 
Henry and Washington, of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, 
John Marshall and the Lees, furnish enough of civic worth 
and military renown to adorn any roll of fame. 

Jamestown, the first English settlement, or rather the 
first to survive, in North America was planted in 1607 on 
a low peninsula of the James river. For several years the 
little colony struggled with misfortune; and but for its 
patron saints Captain John Smith, the Princess Poca- 
hontas, and King Tobacco, it must have perished. Like 
the early Christians, these Jamestown settlers tried to 
live without private property. The lands they tilled were 
owned in common, and their gains in trade with the In- 
dians were put into a common pool. The experiment was 
not a success. In 1610 the plantation had dwindled from 
a few hundred to sixty, and the remnant was preparing to 
return home, when new settlers and supplies arrived from 
England. Soon the tide of prosperity began to flow. The 
Communist system was abolished, and with the institu- 
tion of private property and competition industry found 
its natural incentives. But it was the cultivation of to- 
bacco that brought wealth to the infant settlement, and 
made Virginia at the time of Jefferson’s birth the richest 
and most prosperous of Britain’s North American colonies. 

The credit or discredit of discovering the tobacco plant, 
together with the invention of the art of smoking, belongs 
to the American Indians. Long before the arrival of the 
Spaniards they had domesticated the plant, and had 
learned how to dry the leaves. They had also invented 


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Colonial Virginia and Jefferson’s Boyhood 


the pipe, of which they possessed many varieties. Some 
had bowls of clay, others of stone with long and curiously 
carved stems. The luxurious Aztecs not only smoked 
pipes and cigars but took snuff. 

The first mention of tobacco and of smoking in Euro- 
pean history is a note in the diary of Columbus for the 
year 1492. Soon afterwards the Spaniards brought the 
fragrant weed to Europe. By the end of the sixteenth 
century Englishmen had contracted the habit, and from 
a habit smoking soon became a mania. At first the gov- 
ernment adopted repressive measures, but desisted on 
discovering that an easy and growing revenue could be 
derived from the customs duties on tobacco. 

The first Virginian settlers found that the plant, which 
had been brought from the South, was being grown by 
the Indians in patches near their wigwams. To the red 
man smoking was more than a pleasure; it was often a 
duty and sometimes a rite. The pipe was a symbol of 
charity and good will. The best of pipes, the calumet, 
was the pipe of peace. Captain John Smith, on his first 
visit to the Rappahannocks, was met by four chiefs carry- 
ing a bow with arrows and a pipe, signifying that he might 
take his choice between war and peace. John Rolfe, one 
of Smith’s companions and husband of Pocahontas, 
started a tobacco patch of his own in 1612. The example 
spread; for the soil and climate were favourable, and a 
hogshead of tobacco soon proved to be the most valuable 
of exports. In a few years the Plantation was a Planta- 
tion of tobacco planters. The settlers quickly improved 
on Indian methods, and Virginian tobacco became 
renowned. 

King James the First, who had been induced by hope of 
a gold mine —in which he would have a share — to 


[3] 


Thomas Jefferson 


grant the Colony a charter, was much disgusted when the 
ships began to bring back from Jamestown tobacco in- 
stead of gold. He issued a Counterblast, likening the smoke 
of nicotine to the ‘“‘Stygian fumes of the pit which is bot- 
tomless.”” But the tobacco trade was to prove more lucra- 
tive to the King’s revenue than any gold mine, and the 
nicotine plant did more for the development of Virginia 
than gold for California. The new industry expanded at 
a rate which reminds us of the rubber plantations in Ma- 
laya and the rubber boom of our own days. In 1620 Vir- 
ginia shipped 40,000 pounds of tobacco to England; in 
1628 it appears the export had reached 500,000 pounds; 
and it went on advancing for more than a century until 
in 1745, when Thomas Jefferson was two years old, it had 
risen to 38,000,000 pounds. 

Many of the plantations were very large, and had their 
own wharves on the nearest tidewater, at which English 
ships landed their freight and loaded their cargoes for the 
return voyage. The management of these plantations and 
of the trade with England required a good deal of skill; 
indeed the tact, courtesy, and administrative ability 
which distinguished so many leading Virginians in the 
eighteenth century, and produced the so-called Vir- 
ginian Dynasty of Presidents, may perhaps have been 
inherited from the organizers of the tobacco industry. 

Through causes which have not been sufficiently ex- 
plained, the British Colonies of North America, though 
they practised self-government under their charters with 
considerable success, were unable or unwilling to establish 
and maintain satisfactory currencies. Many scandalous 
measures of repudiation at various times by the various 
legislatures resulted from excessive issues of paper money. 
Virginia was comparatively fortunate; for very early in 


[4] 


Colonial Virginia and Jefferson’s Boyhood 


the history of the Colony tobacco came to be the recog- 
nized medium of exchange and standard of value. A 
pound weight of tobacco was the unit in which labour, 
salaries, and taxes were paid. Even the English maidens, 
brought over in the early days of the Colony to marry its 
bachelors, were paid for in tobacco. One writer, forgetting 
the history of Colonial paper moneys and of the Conti- 
nental currency, which during the Revolutionary War 
became a byword for worthlessness, has deplored the in- 
stability of tobacco money. Occasionally, it is true, as a 
result of an unusually heavy crop, the price fell to a penny 
or even a halfpenny per pound; but for long periods the 
price was fairly stable at about threepence. And tobacco 
had one supreme advantage over paper money; it pos- 
sessed an intrinsic value. It never fell or could fall to 
nothing, like a continental paper dollar, unless or until 
men ceased to smoke. We shall see later how bitterly the 
clergymen of the Established Church of Virginia resented 
a law which compelled them to take their salaries in the 
depreciated paper currency of the Colony instead of in 
tobacco. 

Virginian tobacco could only be shipped to Britain, and 
the monopoly caused some sharp contests between the 
Virginia Assembly and the government at home. Indeed 
a Virginian patriot, contemplating these incidents, once 
went so far as to declare that ‘“‘a true history of tobacco 
would be the history of English and American liberty.” 

In the first half of the eighteenth century Virginia was 
one of the happiest communities of white men in the 
world. It was as a rule very loyal as well as very pros- 
perous. A royal governor presided over a nominated coun- 
cil, resembling the House of Lords, and an elected House 
of Burgesses as jealous of its rights as the House of Com- 


[5] 


Thomas Jefferson 


mons. This popular body had been established in 1619, 
when the Virginians, meeting in the church at James- 
town, elected twenty-two of their number, and thus formed 
the first legislative assembly of the English race in the 
New World. One of these Burgesses (from Flower de 
Hundred) bore the name of Jefferson. The Burgesses, 
though sometimes unruly, were usually controlled by the 
rich planters, who formed a Virginian aristocracy. They 
resembled in their tastes and habits, their politics and 
their love of the chase, the country squires of England 
from whom some of them were descended. They were gay, 
hospitable, fond of display, drove coaches and six, raced, 
danced, drank, fiddled, and gambled, administered the 
law as county justices, and attended church with as 
much zeal and regularity as their brethren in England. 

At its best slavery is an abominable institution. But 
it is not always and everywhere wholly evil. In Virginia, 
as in Greece, it gave leisure to the planter class; and 
some of them used this leisure well. They took to politics 
and law; they administered paternal justice honestly and 
cheaply. Some sent their sons to Oxford, many to William 
and Mary College at Williamsburg. A few, like the Byrds 
of Westover, collected libraries. Fiddles were as plentiful 
as pianos or gramophones among their descendants to-day. 
Life in Old Virginia went very merrily. Comfort was 
widely diffused. Hospitality was the universal rule. Beg- 
gars were almost unknown. Goldsmith would have played 
and danced his way luxuriously through the Old Domin- 
ion. No door would have been closed to him there. The 
tone of Virginian society, and the life of the people, differed 
as widely from the puritanism of New England, as Eng- 
land under Charles the Second differed from England 
under the Long Parliament. 


[6] 


Colonial Virginia and Jefferson’s Boyhood 


Virginia was a diocese of London, and conformity to 
the established religion was as strictly enforced in the 
colony as in the old country. But its parsons did little 
to educate their flocks. In 1723 the Bishop of London, 
evincing a sudden curiosity in these distant parishes of 
his diocese, addressed a series of questions to the Virginian 
parsons. One was: “Are there any schools in your 
parish?” All except three replied, “‘None.”” To another 
question “‘Is there any parish library ?”’ only one could an- 
swer in the affirmative, and his reply was: ‘‘We have 
the Book of Homilies, The Whole Duty of Man, and the 
Singing Psalms.’ Possibly the Bishop’s catechism did 
good; for thirty years later, when Thomas Jefferson 
was ready to go to school, several clergymen were re- 
ceiving boarders, and some few schools, it appears, had 
been established in the more densely populated coun- 
ties. 

It must not be supposed that Virginia at the time our 
story opens was a Royalist club, or that Passive Obedience 
was its political creed. The leading tobacco planters 
have been called Cavaliers by some writers on Colonial 
America, in contrast with the Presbyterians, Indepen- 
dents, and Quakers of New England and Pennsylvania. 
But the Virginian gentry of the eighteenth century were 
not Jacobites. If the fathers had rejoiced in the Restora- 
tion, most of their sons had welcomed the Glorious Revo- 
lution. Forsaking malarious Jamestown, they had named 
their new capital Williamsburg and their college “‘Wil- 
liam and Mary.”’ When the Hanoverian line was estab- 
lished, they felt that the Protestant cause was safe, and 
that under a limited monarchy colonial charters and liber- 
ties would be secure. The advent of George the Third 
upset their calculations. 

[7] 


Thomas Jefferson 


By the middle of the eighteenth century Colonial Vir- 
ginia, “The Old Dominion” as it was often called, con- 
sisted of two parts. The tidewater country, comprising 
the whole coast and marshy lowlands, was separated by 
the Blue Ridge and other ranges of hills from the upland 
western half of Virginia, which became known as the 
“Piedmont country.” The colony had celebrated its 
hundredth birthday before the tidewater country was fully 
occupied; and up to the year 1710 no white settlers had 
passed the Blue Ridge. Then the movement westward 
began. Pioneers pushed up the James river above the 
falls. Goochland, soon to become Albemarle county, was 
set off in 1728. In 1775, the last complete year of its Colo- 
nial history, one-third of Virginia’s citizens lived beyond 
the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, and her adventurous 
frontiersmen had pushed on through Kentucky and Illinois. 
All through this period the House of Burgesses was grow- 
ing in numbers, strength, and influence. If the gentlemen 
planters were mostly conservative Whigs rather than 
reactionary Tories, the smaller planters and yeomen, espe- 
cially those of the pioneer class, displayed at times a spirit 
of independence which brought on differences with the 
governor. They were often Non-conformists — chiefly 
Presbyterians from Ulster — who were beginning to emi- 
grate in rather large numbers. These Scotch-Irish, as 
they are still called, did not mix well with Anglicans; 
they were thorns in the side of the Established Church 
and its not-over-competent parsons. 

In one of the most beautiful and salubrious parts of this 
frontier region Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 
1743. His father’s farmhouse, Shadwell, was finely situated 
on the north bank of the Rivanna, a little above its junc- 
tion with the James river. On the north and west the land- 


[8 ] 


Colonial Virginia and Jefferson’s Boyhood 


scape is bounded by scattered hillsand mountains. Through 
a gap in the southwest range, whence the Rivanna issues, 
can be seen the sharp outlines of the Ragged Mountains. 
Charlottesville, then a tiny village, is four and a half miles 
from Shadwell. A mile and a half on the other side of the 
river rises abruptly from the valley a wooded hill, from 
which in Medieval Europe a robber baron’s castle might 
have frowned. This is Monticello, Jefferson’s beloved 
“little mountain,” whereon he afterwards built a house, 
one of the most picturesque and famous relics of Colonial 
days, a Mecca of the liberal faith, to which many a pious 
pilgrim wends his way. If the view from Shadwell is ex- 
tensive, it is not to be compared with the panorama of 
valleys, plains, hills, and mountains which rewards the 
pedestrian from Charlottesville, when, after a dusty walk 
and a short but stiff climb, he attains the summit of 
Monticello. 

Here, surrounded by grandchildren and great grand- 
children, the patriarch Thomas Jefferson sat down on‘ 
January 6, 1821 ““To make some memoranda and state 
some recollections of facts and dates” concerning himself. 
In his first pages the Autobiography carries us rapidly 
through his family history to his first school. 


The tradition in my father’s family was, that their ancestor came 
to this country from Wales, and from near the mountain of Snowdon, 
the highest in Great Britain. I noted once a case from Wales, in the 
law reports, where a person of our name was either plaintiff or defen- 
dant; and one of the same name was secretary to the Virginia Company. 
These are the only instances in which I have met with the name in that 
country. I have found it in our early records; but the first particular 
information I have of any ancestor was of my grandfather, who lived 
at the place in Chesterfield called Osborne’s, and owned the lands after- 
wards the glebe of the parish. He had three sons; Thomas, who died 
young, Field, who settled on the waters of Roanoke, and left numerous 


[9] 


Thomas Jefferson 


descendants, and Peter, my father, who settled on the lands I still own, 
called Shadwell, adjoining my present residence. He was born February 
29, 1707-8, and intermarried 1739, with Jane Randolph, of the age of 
nineteen, daughter of Isham Randolph, one of the seven sons of that 
name and family settled at Dungeoness in Goochland. They trace 
their pedigree far back in England and Scotland, to which let everyone 
ascribe the faith and merit he chooses. 

My father’s education had been quite neglected; but being of a 
strong mind, sound judgment, and eager after information, he read 
much and improved himself, insomuch that he was chosen, with Joshua 
Fry, professor of Mathematics in William and Mary college, to con- 
tinue the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina, which 
had been begun by Colonel Byrd; and was afterwards employed with 
the same Mr. Fry, to make the first map of Virginia which had ever 
been made, that of Captain Smith being merely a conjectural sketch. 
. . . He was the third or fourth settler, about the year 1737, of the 
part of the country in which I live. He died August 17, 1757, leaving 
my mother a widow, who lived till 1776, with six daughters and two 
sons, myself the elder. To my younger brother he left his estate on 
James river, called Snowdon, after the supposed birth place of the fam- 
ily: to myself, the lands on which I was born and live. He placed me 
at the English school at five years of age; and at the Latin at nine, 
where I continued until his death. 


We all feel a legitimate curiosity in the pedigrees of great 
men, and fortunately Jefferson’s brief account can be am- 
plified. Not many will have the time and patience to plod 
through the three large volumes in which Henry Randall, 
most painstaking and copious of official biographers, 
presents the complete life of his hero.! But from Ran- 
dall’s pages and from a charming book by Jefferson’s 
great granddaughter, Sarah N. Randolph,? some details 
may be gathered which help us to understand how this 

1 Tt was undertaken, as announced at the time, “with the approbation of the 
family, with an unreserved access to the use of all private papers in their posses- 
sion, and at every step was aided by their recollections and opinions.” 


2 The Domestic Life of Thomas Fefferson, compiled from family letters and 
reminiscences, New York, 1871. 
[ 10 ] 


Colonial Virginia and Jefferson’s Boyhood 


particular boy, born on the Indian frontier of Virginia, 
came to be prophet of democracy, leader of Republican- 
ism, and ruler of the United States. 

As yet no recipe has been found for the production of 
human genius, though the discoveries of Mendel and his 
disciples in the crossing of plants and animals have gone 
far to fortify our belief that qualities as well as features 
are transmitted from parents to children. Unusual talents, 
it has been remarked, sometimes spring from a union 
between an old family, which has enjoyed leisure, wealth, 
and culture for generations, and a more robust individual, 
who has fought his way upwards by hard work and enter- 
prise. From such a marriage came Thomas Jefferson. In 
him the sensitive pride and refinement of the Randolphs 
were united with the physical strength, the inexhaustible 
energy of mind, and the capacity for making friendships 
and improving opportunities which accounted for the rise 
of his father. 

The Jeffersons were among the first settlers in Virginia. 
The name, as we have already noted, appears among the 
Burgesses convened by Governor Yeardley at Jamestown 
in July, 1619. Jefferson’s father, Peter, was famed for 
herculean strength. A hogshead of tobacco weighed a 
thousand pounds. Standing between two _ hogsheads, 
Peter could “‘head”’ them both up at once, a performance 
beyond the power of two ordinary labourers. With 
strength went endurance, enterprise, skill, and courage, 
qualities which found full scope on the frontier. Like 
George Washington he began as a land surveyor, the most 
attractive of all civil employments to adventurous spirits 
in a prosperous and expanding colony, and won his way 
into the best Virginian society. Among the leading fam- 
ilies at that time, the Randolphs, in whose veins ran the 


[ise] 


Thomas Jefferson 


royal blood of the Princess Pocahontas, were perhaps the 
richest, the proudest, and the most influential. They 
came of good stock; their forefathers, squires of Warwick- 
shire and Northamptonshire, were allied with the great 
Scottish Earls of Murray. One of them, Thomas Ran- 
dolph, an Elizabethan poet and wit, had the honour of 
being ‘‘adopted”’ by Ben Jonson. This Thomas was great 
uncle of William, a cavalier who emigrated to Virginia 
about the year 1660, prospered greatly, and married 
Catherine Isham. Isham Randolph, Thomas Jefferson’s 
maternal grandfather, was one of their children. 

At twenty-five or thereabouts Peter Jefferson became 
bosom friend of William Randolph, the young lord of 
Tuckahoe. Next he sought and won the hand of William’s 
cousin, Jane, eldest daughter of Isham Randolph, opulent 
proprietor of Dungeness and at that time Adjutant General 
of Virginia. Isham had a taste for botany which descended 
to his grandson, and corresponded on the subject with 
two Quaker botanists of that time — Peter Collinson in 
London, and William Bartram of Philadelphia. A quaint 
letter has been preserved from Collinson to Bartram ad- 
vising the latter, who was planning a botanical tour in 
Virginia, to visit Isham, but before starting, to provide 
himself with a suit of fine clothes. For, said he, “‘these 
Virginians are a very gentle and well dressed people, and 
look perhaps more at a man’s outside than his inside.” 
The good Quaker visited Isham at his grand mansion on 
the James river, where he was hospitably entertained by 
the proprietor and a staff of about one hundred slaves. 

Virginia’s best tobacco lands were becoming exhausted 
before the middle of the eighteenth century, and the Pied- 
mont country, well timbered and suitable for wheat or 
maize, was being developed. As tobacco profits dimin- 


[12] 


Colonial Virginia and Jefferson’s Boyhood 


ished the old planters maintained their style by mort- 
gaging their estates. And so it happened that there was 
plenty of work for surveyors and lawyers during the last 
half century of Virginia’s Colonial history, while Peter 
Jefferson was making a fortune and his eldest son a 
reputation. 

In his boyhood Thomas Jefferson must have seen some- 
thing of his father’s professional work as a land surveyor 
on the frontier, and he afterwards gave a careful descrip- 
tion of land settlement in his Notes on Virginia. At first, 
he tells us, the mode of acquiring lands was by petition to 
the General Assembly. “If the lands prayed for were 
already clear of Indian title, and the Assembly thought 
the prayer reasonable, they passed the property by their 
vote to the petitioner. But if they had not yet been ceded 
by the Indians, it was necessary that the petitioner should 
previously purchase their right.’”’ As the Colony in- 
creased, and individual applications for land multiplied, 
the General Assembly established general rules to regu- 
late all grants of land, leaving their administration to the 
Governor. Thus arose what were usually called the Land 
Laws of Virginia. Under these the Crown made general 
purchases of lands from the Indians, and the Governor 
assigned them to suitable applicants in accordance with 
the rules made by the Legislature. 

This process of acquiring new lands was known as 
“patenting.” It was the first object of a successful Vir- 
ginian to enroll himself in the landowning class; for there, 
as in the old country, an estate or plantation was almost 
indispensable to social and political status. So in 1735 
Peter Jefferson, making ready to marry a Randolph and 
found a family, “‘patented”’ a thousand acres on the fron- 
tier at the eastern opening of the mountain group through 


[13] 


Thomas Jefterson 


which the Rivanna flows. The river intersected his es- 
tate, and most of it lay in the valley; but it spread also 
to the foothills and embraced the whole of the steep 
wooded hill which his son was to name Monticello. 

At the same time his friend, William Randolph, “ pat- 
ented” an adjoining tract of 2,400 acres on the east, 400 
acres of which he soon afterwards transferred to Peter 
Jefferson, not for cash, but, as the deed shows, for “Henry 
Weatherbourne’s biggest bowl of arrack punch”—a 
transaction which witnesses alike to the conviviality and 
the affection of the two friends. On the land thus added 
to his original patent, Peter Jefferson found a suitable site, 
and built the “‘plain weather-boarded house” to which 
in 1738 he took his bride Jane Randolph. 

Isham’s daughter and Peter’s wife had been born in the 
parish of Shadwell in London, when her parents were on 
a visit to the old country; so in her honour Peter Jeffer- 
son called his farm Shadwell. The adjoining estate of 
William Randolph was named Edgehill, after the field on 
which some of his cavalier ancestors had fought for Roy- 
alty. Colonel William Randolph of Tuckahoe and Edge- 
hill died in 1745. His last request was that Peter Jefferson 
should take care of his estates and be guardian to his son, 
Thomas Mann Randolph. Peter accordingly removed 
with his wife and family to Tuckahoe and remained 
there seven years. Thomas was then only two years 
old; but he just remembered being handed up to a 
servant on horseback and carried for a long distance 
on a pillow. The Jefferson family returned to Shadwell 
int 52. 

At Shadwell all manly sports were encouraged. An ar- 
dent hunter and naturalist, the boy spent many happy 
days in pursuit of game along the southwest mountains. 


[14] 


Colonial Virginia and Jefferson’s Boyhood 


He excelled in swimming, and soon became one of the 
boldest riders in Virginia. By his father young Jef- 
ferson was taught that “it is the strong in body who 
are both the strong and the free in mind.” In this 
school too he learned self-reliance; for another favour- 
ite maxim of his father’s (rarely honoured in a slave 
state) was: “Never ask another to do what you can do 
yourself.” 

Peter Jefferson was not one of those self-made men who 
despise books and learning. His library included Shake- 
speare, Swift, the Spectator, and the works of Doddridge, 
which the good low churchman and Whig esteemed “more 
precious than gold.”” He meant his eldest boy to be a 
scholar, and left instructions for his education. Before his 
death in 1757 Peter had assumed the leadership in Albe- 
marle, one of the new Piedmont counties. He was one of 
its three justices, county surveyor, and member of the 
House of Burgesses. As County Colonel he was respon- 
sible for the Indian frontier, a post of some anxiety after 
Braddock’s defeat in 1755. Fortunately for the people of 
Albemarle, he knew how to keep the peace by treating 
the Red men with kindness and hospitality. As Shadwell 
lay near the Indian trail, now becoming a public highway, 
the farm was a favourite stopping place for friendly chiefs 
on their way to Williamsburg, the Colonial capital, which 
lay a hundred and fifty miles away. 

In 1812 Thomas Jefferson and John Adams exchanged 
reminiscences about the Red Indians. They area people, 
wrote Jefferson, “with whom in the early part of my life I 
was very familiar’ :— 

“At that time I acquired impressions of attachment and commisera- 


tion for them which have never been obliterated. Before the Revolu- 
tion they were in the habit of coming often, and in great numbers, to 


RBCS 


Thomas Jefferson 


the seat of government where I was often with them. I knew much of 
the great Ontasseté, the warrior and orator of the Cherokees. He was 
always the guest of my father on his journeys to and from Williams- 
burg. I was in his camp when he made his great farewell oration to 
his people the evening before he departed for England. The moon was 
in full splendour, and to her he seemed to address himself in his prayers 
for his own safety on the voyage and that of his people during his ab- 
sence. His sounding voice, distinct articulation, animated action, and 
the solemn silence of his people at their several fires, filled me with awe 
and veneration, although I did not understand a word he uttered.” 


All through life Jefferson maintained a keen interest in 
the Indian tribes of North America, diligently collecting 
information about their languages, customs, character, 
origins, and traditions. He did more than any other 
American statesman of that time to protect and save 
them from extinction. In his opinion the Red Indian was 
superior to the negro and equal to an uncivilised Euro- 
pean in intellect, morals, and physique. 

On this wild and beautiful frontier, encouraged by his 
father to ride and shoot, Thomas Jefferson learned to love 
nature and the solitude of the forest. His observations of 
wild animals were recorded with scientific exactitude. 
The famous Notes on Virginia, written in 1781 and 1782 at 
Monticello, are fresh with the recollections of boyhood 
and early manhood, when the forest primeval stretched 
from his home to the unexplored and mysterious West. 


“The round horned elk,” he remarks “seems to stand in the same 
relation to the palmated elk as the red deer does to the fallow. It has 
abounded in Virginia; has been seen, within my knowledge, on the 
eastern side of the Blue Ridge since the year 1765, is now common be- 
yond those mountains, has been often brought to us and tamed, and 
its horns are in the hands of many.” He designates it the “‘Alces 
Americanus cornibus teretibus,”’ and correcting Buffon, distinguishes 
three, if not four, distinct species of the Elk tribe. “The skins of a 
moose, and of acaribou,” he adds, “differ more from each other, and 


[ 16 | 


Colonial Virginia and Jefferson’s Boyhood 


from that of the round horned elk than I ever saw two skins differ 
which belonged to different individuals of any wild species. These dif- 
ferences are in the colour, length and coarseness of the hair, and in the 
size, texture, and marks of the skin.” 


Again after tabling the various squirrels, gray, black, red, 
etc. with their weights, he writes: ‘“‘I have enumerated 
the squirrels according to my own knowledge derived from 
daily sight of them.”’ Of Catesby’s American Birds, we 
are told: ‘“‘his drawings are better as to form and atti- 
tude than colouring, which is generally too high.” Jeffer- 
son knew the popular as well as the Latin names of all 
Virginian birds from bald eagle and turkey buzzard down 
to wren and humming bird, and enumerated a score un- 
noticed by Catesby. His knowledge of insects appears in 
disquisitions on bees and weevils. His letters teem with 
observations on the whole vegetable and animal kingdom. 
He pursued agriculture as a science, and gardened as a 
botanist. 

A naturalist is not often a successful politician; for 
the proper study of mankind is man. But Jefferson’s 
mind seems to have expanded eagerly and easily as new 
fields of inquiry opened before it. His curiosity was uni- 
versal; to satisfy it he employed unusual talents and ex- 
ceptional industry. The tastes and interests of boyhood 
developed into hobbies and scientific pursuits. Nothing 
in his life will astonish us more than the variety of his ap- 
titudes. A gift for languages, a gift for mathematics and 
mechanics, a profound interest in law and custom, a pas- 
sion for music and architecture, — all these were indulged 
and pursued through the stress and strain of a most ar- 
duous public life. We shall not try to distinguish the 
qualities he inherited from the qualities he acquired. He 
was happy alike in his birth and his birthplace. But there 


tr |] 


Thomas Jefterson 


is nothing far-fetched or fanciful in supposing that a joy- 
ous, healthy boyhood spent mostly with nature gave him 
that strength and flexibility of mind and body which dis- 
tinguished Jefferson even among the giants of that heroic 
age. 


[ 18 ] 


CHAPTERGHT 


AT COLLEGE 


“To scorn delights and live laborious days.” 
— Mitton 


was thrown on his own resources without a rela- 

tive or friend qualified to advise or guide him. 
Recalling this long afterwards ina letter to his eldest 
grandson, remembering also “the various sorts of bad 
company with which I was associated from time to time,” 
he wrote: “I am astonished that I did not turn off with 
some of them and become as worthless to society as they 
were.” 

His father had left him an estate and a classical educa- 
tion. He prized them both. No manever enjoyed home 
and home life more. In later years he always left his be- 
loved and beautiful Monticello with reluctance, and re- 
turned with a joyful heart. Yet in old age he was often 
heard to say that if he had to choose between the pleasure 
derived from his classical studies and his property, he would 
decide for the former. 

_ Jefferson’s second schoolmaster, James Maury, a correct 
classical scholar, was a Whig clergyman of broad views, 
who lived fourteen miles from Shadwell at the foot of 
Peter’s Mountain. Maury was of Huguenot extraction, 
and had come to Virginia as tutor to the Monroe family. 
His fee for board and tuition was twenty pounds a year — 


[19] 


B the death of his father, Jefferson, a boy of fourteen, 


Thomas Jefferson 


rather a high figure at that time, and four pounds more 
than Douglas charged. But we may suppose that the 
diet as well as the instruction was better; for Jefferson 
used to tell his grandchildren of the “‘mouldy pies” at his 
first boarding school. 

After two years under Maury Jefferson wrote a letter, 
the earliest we possess, to his guardian, John Harvey. It 
was dated Shadwell, January 14, 1760:— 


Sir: I was at Colo. Peter Randolph’s about a fortnight ago, and my 
schooling falling into discourse, he said he thought it would be to my 
Advantage to go to the College, and was desirous I should go, as indeed I 
am myself for several Reasons. In the first place, as long as I stay at 
the Mountain, the loss of one-fourth of my Time is inevitable, by 
Company’s coming here and detaining me from School. And likewise 
my Absence will, in a great measure, put a Stop to so much Company, 
and by that means lessen the Expenses of the Estate in Housekeeping. 
And on the other Hand by going to the College I shall get a more uni- 
versal Acquaintance, which may hereafter be serviceable to me; and 
I suppose I can pursue my Studies in the Greek and Latin as well there 
as here, and likewise learn something of the Mathematics. I shall be 
glad of your Opinion, 

And remain, Sir, 
Your most humble servant, 


Thomas Jefferson, Jr. 


His guardian consented, and accordingly in the spring 
of 1760, being then just seventeen, Jefferson went to Wil- 
liam and Mary College, where he was speedily beset by all 
the temptations that assailed and still assail young gen- 
tlemen of wealthin Virginia and elsewhere. On his way 
to college, we are told, he spent some merry days with Colo- 
nel Dandridge of Hanover county, “‘in junketing, dancing 
and high jinks of all sorts.”’ Here he met for the first time 
a youth who was destined to set Liberty aflame. Patrick 
Henry — for it was no other — lived near by and enjoyed 

[ 20 ] 


At College 


close intimacy with Dandridge. Though only twenty-four 
he had already failed in business. As Jefferson wrote long 
afterwards to Henry’s biographer, Wirt: “‘Mr. Henry 
had a little before broken up his store, or rather it had 
broken him up.” But if his purse was empty, his heart 
was light. He fiddled and danced, jested and rollicked 
with a gaiety which enchanted the youngsters. Henry’s 
dress and manners betokened the rude life of the back- 
woods. His great delight, wrote Jefferson, “was to put on 
his hunting shirt, collect a parcel of overseers and such 
like people, and spend weeks together in the piny woods, 
camping at night and cracking jokes round a light wood 
fire.’ He spoke with a mixed brogue — “larnin’”’ for 
learning, and “‘nateral’’ for natural. Jefferson was at- 
tracted by talents and a character so unlike his own. A 
short time afterwards Patrick Henry appeared in Williams- 
burg. He had “studied” law for a few weeks, and had 
prevailed upon the Examiners to grant him a license to 
practice at the Virginian Bar. His natural eloquence and 
abilities, often displayed in bold opposition to the Crown, 
soon won him such a reputation that in 1765 he was 
elected by Louisa county to the House of Burgesses. 
On his visits to court at Williamsburg Henry used to 
stop with Jefferson, and the two friends soon began to 
share unusually advanced views about political and 
religious liberty. 

Williamsburg, where Jefferson was to work for the next 
fifteen years, is situated between the York river and the 
James river. Jamestown, the old capital, had never 
thriven; so in 1699 it was decided to transfer the seat of 
government to a more salubrious spot. A site for the 
new city, named after the reigning monarch, was selected 
in true English fashion by a jury of twelve freeholders. 


[21] 


Thomas Jefferson 


The college of William and Mary in brick, designed by 
Sir Christopher Wren in the style of Chelsea Hospital, 
supplied a convenient meeting place for the Burgesses un- 
til the State House or Capitol was completed in 1705. A 
palace for the royal governor soon rose between the College 
and the Capitol; and the famous Powder Horn, which 
still stands to remind us of the little town’s glorious con- 
nection with the history of Liberty, provided the colony 
with a magazine, an armory, and a blacksmith’s shop. 
Then a church was erected, so that the loyal inhabitants 
might conform to the established religion and pray for 
their King and his governor, whose large square pew, ele- 
vated above the rest, was covered with an imposing canopy 
of red silk. An inn, appropriately called the Raleigh 
Tavern, completed the principal buildings.t Its Apollo 
Room saw many scenes of Colonial festivity before it 
gained political renown in the first act of the Revolu- 
tionary drama. Some two hundred wooden houses and a 
bare thousand souls,” including slaves, made up the whole 
city when Jefferson rode into it in 1760. 

Since then it has scarcely doubled, and time has 
wrought fewer changes than in any American town of 
equal age. You may still see the Colonial homes of the 
Randolphs, of Blair, of Chancellor Wythe, and others. 
If these old timber houses with their painted porticos, 

1In his Notes on Virginia, written in 1781-8, Jefferson says that the only 
public buildings in Virginia worthy of mention are “ the capitol, the palace, the 
college, the hospital for lunatics, all of them in Williamsburg, heretofore the seat 
of our government.” He thought the Capitol —a mixture of Doric and Ionic 
— “the most pleasing piece of architecture we have.” The Palace was spacious 
and commodious, though not handsome. His remarks on the college and hospi- 
tal are disrespectful — “ rude misshapen piles, which but that they have roofs 
would be mistaken for brick-kilns.” 


2In Notes on Virginia Jefferson says that the population of Williamsburg 
never exceeded 1800, 
[ 22 ] 


At College 


their dormer windows and neglected rose gardens, suggest 
only faded gentility to the casual globe trotter, they 
would impress the imagination of a Childe Harold with 
thoughts of a change in human institutions and govern- 
ment as momentous as those revealed by the Acropo- 
lis, the Forum, St. Sophia, or Westminster Abbey. The 
littleness of the stage only magnifies the giants who strode 
across it. For William and Mary, even more than its 
elder sister Harvard, trained the statesmen, lawgivers, 
and jurists who were to build up a mighty republic; and 
the little tidewater capital has a right to remember with 
pride the days when Virginia’s heroic sons, Washington, 
George Wythe, George Mason, Patrick Henry, Jefferson, 
Madison, Monroe, John Marshall, and the rest of that far- 
famed band, were familiar figures in its streets. 

Hardly more than a village, Williamsburg offered in 
the middle of the eighteenth century as much gaiety and 
good society as any Colonial town. When the six-horse 
coaches came lumbering in for some great event —a 
horse race, a ball, a marriage, or the opening of the Grand 
Assembly — the little place buzzed with as much noise 
and pomp as an English county town on like occasions. 
Judges in their scarlet robes, students in cap and gown, 
gentlemen in gorgeous velvets and ruffles, their ladies in 
trailing gowns of rich brocade, decked with feathers, rib- 
bons, and lace made a brave and gallant show. During 
the winter season, writes Dr. Chandler, one of Virginia’s 
historians, many planters visited Williamsburg and “‘in- 
dulged in an incessant round of gaieties.”’ Social functions 
celebrated the annual meeting of the Assembly. From 
time to time London companies came to present the plays 
of Shakespeare or Congreve. Cards and the dice-box, 
horse-racing, cock fighting, and all the diversions of Mer- 


[323] 


Thomas Jefferson 


rie England flourished in that rich happy-go-lucky society 
of old Virginia. 

Dr. Chandler quotes a typical Williamsburg programme 
of October, 1737, for the entertainment of gentlemen and 
ladies at the Old Field. Besides the horse races, a two- 
shilling hat was to be cudgelled for. Twenty fiddlers, each 
playing a different tune, were to compete for another prize. 
Twelve boys were entered for the 112 yards race, the prize 
for which was a twelve-shilling hat. Then came a singing 
contest, next a wrestling match with a pair of silver 
buckles for the winner; and last but not least the prettiest 
girl on the field was to be awarded a pair of silk stockings 
of “‘one pistole’s value.” 

Into this dizzy pool of pleasure Jefferson plunged, and 
looking back afterwards wondered that he swam safe to 
shore. The college was rowdy, and we have glimpses in 
his letters of some boyish escapades. He gave the credit 
for his rescue to three older men, William Small, George 
Wythe, and Peyton Randolph, who took him in charge. 
It was indeed fortunate that the fatherless boy, wealthy, 
flattered, free to do as he liked, a good sportsman, a boid 
rider, throbbing with animal spirits and the joy of life, 
found friends able to detect and draw out his talents; 
still more fortunate that fame spurred him on, and that 
a passion for knowledge, combined with a taste for letters, 
arts, and science took hold upon him. “I was often 
thrown,” he wrote of these student days, “into the society 
of horse-racers, card players, fox hunters, scientific and 
professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time 
I have asked myself in the enthusiastic moment of the 


1See Colonial Virginia by J. A. C. Chandler and T. B. Thames, Richmond, 
Va., 1907. I owe to Dr. Chandler a most delightful and instructive visit in 
December, 1921, to William and Mary College, over which he presides. 


[ 24 | 


At College 


death of a fox, the victory of a favourite horse, the issue 
of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the Great 
Council of the nation, ‘Well, which of these kinds of repu- 
tation should I prefer? That of a horse jockey? a fox 
hunter? an orator? or the honest advocate of my coun- 
try’s rights?” In moments of temptation or difficulty 
‘I would ask myself — what would Dr. Small, Mr. 
Wythe, Peyton Randolph do in this situation ?’”’ 

After a year at College Jefferson found that he had 
spent too much on dress and horses. So in a remorseful 
letter to his guardian he requested that, as the college bills 
seemed to be excessive, his whole expenditure during the 
year at Williamsburg should be charged to his separate 
share of the property. ““No” was the good-natured re- 
ply, “if you have sowed your wild oats in this way, the 
estate can well afford to pay the bill.” 

In the Autobiography we have a summary view of his 
debt to William and Mary College, or rather to Dr. Small, 
a remarkable person of whom little is known save that 
he was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and of Erasmus 
Darwin :— 


“Tn the spring of 1760 I went to William and Mary College, where 
I continued for two years. It was my great good fortune, and what 
probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small of Scot- 
land was then Professor of Mathematics, a man profound in most of the 
useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, cor- 
rect and gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind. He, 
most happily for me, became soon attached to me, and made me his 
daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his con- 
versation I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of the 
system of things in which we are placed. Fortunately, the philosophi- 
cal chair became vacant soon after my arrival in college, and he was 
appointed to fill it per interim: and he was the first who ever gave, in 
that college, regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric, and Belles Lettres. 


[25] 


Thomas Jefferson 


He returned to Europe in 1762, having previously filled up the measure 
of his goodness to me, by procuring for me, from his most intimate 
friend, George Wythe, a reception as a student of law, under his direc- 
tion, and introduced me to the acquaintance and familiar table of 
Governor Fauquier, the ablest man who had ever filled that office. 
With him, and at his table, Dr. Small and Mr. Wythe, his amici omnium 
horarum, and myself, formed a partie quarrée, and to the habitual con- 
versations on these occasions I owed much instruction. Mr. Wythe 
continued to be my faithful and beloved mentor in youth, and my 
most affectionate friend through life.” 


In another account of his days at William and Mary 
given in 1815 to Girardin, one of the historians of Virginia, 
he says that Dr. Small was Wythe’s “‘bosom friend, and 
to me as a father.’’ To Small’s “‘enlightened and affec- 
tionate guidance of my studies while at college I am in- 
debted for everything.” ! At the dinners in the Gov- 
ernor’s house, he adds, “I have heard more good sense, 
more rational and philosophical conversation than in all 
my life besides. They were truly Attic societies. The 
Governor was musical also, and a good performer; and 
associated me with two or three other amateurs in his 
weekly concerts.’’ Governor Fauquier has been described 
by Burk in his history of Virginia. “With some allow- 
ances,’ we are told, he “was everything that could have 
been wished for by Virginia under a royal government. 
Generous, liberal, elegant in his manners and acquire- 
ments, his example left an impression of taste, refinement, 
and erudition on the character of the colony, which emi- 
nently contributed to its present high reputation in the 
arts.” But unfortunately his accomplishments were 
marred by at least one blemish. Fauquier was the. son of 


1 Tt will be noticed that Dr. Small was a Scot. Lord Brougham in his review 
of Tucker’s Life of Jefferson, Edinburgh Review, October, 1837, says that Dr. 
Small’s brother was a Minister at Dundee. 


[ 26 | 


At College 


a Director of the Bank of England and something of an 
economist; for he had written a treatise against the Na- 
tional Debt, and was one of the first to advocate a capita- 
tion or income tax as an alternative to borrowing. But 
the Governor’s private practice fell lamentably short of 
his public precepts. Burk says that Anson on his return 
from circumnavigating the earth fell in with Fauquier, 
and won at cards in a single night his whole patrimony : — 


“ Afterwards, being captivated by the striking graces of this gentle- 
man’s person and conversation, he procured for him the government of 
Virginia. Unreclaimed by the former subversion of his fortune, he in- 
troduced the same fatal propensity to gaming into Virginia; and the 
example of so many virtues and accomplishments alloyed but by a single 
vice, was too successful in extending the influence of this pernicious 
and ruinous practice. He found among the people of his new govern- 
ment a character compounded of the same elements as his own; and 
he found little difficulty in rendering fashionable a practice which had, 
before his arrival, prevailed to an alarming extent. During the recess 
of the courts of judicature and assemblies, he visited the most distin- 
guished landholders in the Colonies, and the rage for playing deep, 
reckless of time, health, or money, spread like a contagion among a 
class proverbial for their hospitality, their politeness, and fondness 
for expense. In everything beside, Fauquier was the ornament and 
delight of Virginia.” ! 


Governor Fauquier was also a free thinker, an admirer 
of Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, and it is possible that his 
conversation may have exercised some influence on Jeffer- 
son’s religious opinions. But it is more probable — and 
for this we have Madison’s authority — that young Jeffer- 
son learned nothing worse from Fauquier than an easy 
dignity of manner, a refinement in conversation, and 
“that taste for the elegancies of life with which he always 
embellished the plainness of the republican and the sim- 


1 Burk, History of Virginia, II, 333. 
[ 27 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


BD] 


plicity of the philosopher.”’ Certainly he never fell a vic- 
tim to the gambling mania. From his minutely kept ac- 
counts it appears that occasionally he lost or won a few 
shillings at cards or backgammon in a friend’s house. But 
from his youth upwards he eschewed and detested gam- 
bling. His overseer, Edmund Bacon, never saw a card at 
Monticello, and ‘“‘had particular orders”’ to suppress card 
playing among the negroes. As there are people who 
cannot enjoy a climb without a risk, sothere are people who 
cannot enjoy a game without a stake. From perhaps the 
most irrational and pitiful of the passions that have 
wrecked the happiness of many good men, and the careers 
of some great men, Jefferson by natural disposition or 
deliberate choice was wholly exempt. So too, though 
fond of good wine and a connoisseur, he was abstemious, 
never touching spirits; and though a producer of tobacco 
he never consumed it in any form. 

At college Jefferson contracted a passion for reading 
and collecting books, and began to pursue some of the 
hobbies which remained with him through life. In Cham- 
bers he studied Anglo-Saxon in order to trace out for him- 
self the origins of the Common Law. To Greek, Latin, 
and French, of which he had perfect mastery, he added a 
fair knowledge of Spanish and Italian. He made some 
attempts too at German, but never became familiar with 
it. It is characteristic of the man that he generally 
avoided fiction. But his list of favourite novelists, though 
small, was a good one — Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Mar- 
montel, Gil Blas, and Cervantes. Don Quixote, it is said, 
was the only novel he read more than once, or very keenly 
relished. When Ossian appeared Jefferson was entranced 
by “this rude bard of the North” and determined to learn 
the language in order to enjoy his songs in their original 


[ 28 | 


At College 


form. He had met a kinsman of James McPherson in Vir- 
ginia and wrote (1773) to beg him to procure regardless of 
expense a copy of the Celtic manuscript, as well as a Celtic 
grammar and a Celtic dictionary. 

Jefferson probably worked pretty hard as a freshman 
though he did not neglect the pleasures of town or coun- 
try. But his second year in College, we are told, ‘was 
more diligently employed than the first. Company, 
the riding horse, and soon the violin were nearly dis- 
carded.”’ He habitually studied, so he afterwards de- 
clared, fifteen hours a day. His only exercise was to run 
sharply a mile out of the city and back at twilight. After 
two years he took his degree, and left college for Wythe’s 
Chambers a proficient mathematician, a good classic, 
with a keen interest in philosophy and a fair knowledge 
of modern languages. 

During his vacations at Shadwell he usually gave three- 
fourths of the day to his books, rising at dawn, as soon as 
the hands of the clock on his bedroom mantelpiece could 
be distinguished in the grey light. At the end of the day 
he crossed the Rivanna in a canoe and walked up his little 
mountain, the top of which was soon to be levelled in 
preparation for his first experiment in architecture. 


[ 29 | 


GHAPT ER ATT 
STUDENT OF LAW 


“A man that is young in years may be old in hours if he has lost no 
time.”’ — Bacon 


for the seven years of his life at College and in 

Chambers. The early ones are to his chum John 
Page, afterwards his rival for the Governorship of Vir- 
ginia. Several are headed “Devilsburg,” his nickname 
for Virginia’s capital. They tell of mirth and jollity, of 
“dull old Coke,” and other law studies; of riding, dan- 
cing, and fiddling; of a resolution (not carried out) to 
visit Europe and Egypt; of disorders in the College fol- 
lowed by expulsions and rustications; of the opening of 
the Law Courts, October, 1763, “which I must attend con- 
stantly”’; of shorthand, then called ‘“tachygraphy”’; 
but for the most part of their love affairs. His most seri- 
ous flirtation was with a Miss Rebecca Burwell, the Be- 
linda of his correspondence. The lover was too cool, or 
the courtship too protracted. The belles of Virginia in 
those days expected to be married in their teens, and Miss 
Burwell cut the courtship short by marrying another in 
1764. Jefferson, who had lavished Latin puns, Greek 
anagrams, and indifferent English verses upon her, was a 
little hurt, but speedily recovered from Cupid’s dart. 
Indeed he had no time to be lovesick. Law was his mis- 
tress; a passion for learning had seized upon him. In 


[ 30 ] 


()* a few of Jefferson’s letters have been preserved 


Student of Law 


Wythe’s chambers he was hard at work filling his common- 
place book with abstracts and disquisitions, or attending 
Court, or “devilling” for his learned friend and master. 
His ambition was set upon success at the Bar, not without 
thought perhaps of a public career. 

At this time Jefferson’s appearance was striking rather 
than handsome; but his vivacity, high spirits, fine man- 
ners, and conversational powers, to say nothing of his 
skill in dancing, made him a general favourite. He was 
above six feet two in height, slim and straight, with luxu- 
riant and silky auburn hair, fair complexion and angular 
features. A long nose, firm chin, and sensitive mouth 
spelled strong emotion and unswerving resolution. Con- 
temporaries tell us that his eyes were hazel, full set and 
expressive. His temper was well under control; his bear- 
ing so courtly; dignified, and correct that he never gave 
or had occasion to repel a personal insult. 

We have seen how much Jefferson owed to Dr. William 
Small, the mathematical and philosophical Scotchman 
who introduced him first to science and then to law in the 
person of George Wythe. Wythe was one of Virginia’s 
greatest sons. Of independent fortune, but without any 
regular education, he made himself the best Latin and 
Greek scholar in the Colony, besides acquiring a fair 
knowledge of mathematics, and the natural sciences. A 
doctrinaire in the best sense of the word, he had studied 
Coke and Locke to good purpose, and held very liberal 
opinions about popular rights and religious liberty with a 
quiet and unobtrusive tenacity. He was already in the 
enjoyment of a large practice when Jefferson entered his 
Chambers. Few lawyers have been better fitted to nurse 
talent, and few have had more to nurse; for into the 
same chambers, following Jefferson, came John Marshall, 


bat’) 


Thomas Jefferson 


the great Chief Justice; and after Wythe had become 
Chancellor of Virginia Henry Clay served him as secretary. 
But Jefferson was Wythe’s favourite pupil, and to Jeffer- 
son he left his valuable library. Wythe is said to have 
been eccentric, possibly because he carried the religion of 
humanity from the region of the abstract into personal 
practice. During his lifetime he emancipated all his 
slaves and made provision for their subsistence. In Jeffer- 
son’s character of his “beloved mentor” no blemishes 
appear. So inflexible was his integrity, so warm his pa- 
triotism, such his devotion to liberty and to the natural 
rights of man that he might be called the Virginian Cato 
but for a disinterested liberality which contrasted with 
the avarice of the Roman. Called to the Bar of the Gen- 
eral Court he soon — to quote Jefferson — became first 
in his profession by virtue of superior learning, elocution, 
and logic : — 

“Tn pleading he never indulged himself with a useless or declamatory 
thought or word — and became as distinguished by correctness and 
purity of conduct in his profession, as he was by his industry and fidelity 
to those who employed him. He was early elected to the House of Bur- 
gesses, and continued in it till the Revolution. On the first dawn of 
that, instead of higgling on halfway principles, as others did who feared 
to follow their reason, he took his stand on the solid ground that the 
only link of political union between us and Great Britain was the iden- 
tity of our executive; and that the nation and its parliament had no 
more authority over us than we had over them, and that we were co- 
ordinate nations with Great Britain and Hanover.” 

There had always been democratic elements in Virginia, 
though the rich planters of the Colony usually supported 
Church and King. Revolutionary principles had flamed 
up as early as 1675 in Bacon’s Rebellion, and Wythe’s 
teaching laid the intellectual basis of a school to which 
Patrick Henry’s eloquence soon lent fire and force. So by 


[ 32] 


Student of Law 


degrees the school became a party, and the party helped 
to found a nation. Before Jefferson had been long in 
Chambers a trial of strength took place between the dis- 
senters and the State Church, which gave Patrick Henry 
an opportunity of coming forward as a village Hampden, 
while Jefferson played the more obscure part of Selden. 
The clergy of the Established Church of Virginia re- 
ceived their stipends in tobacco. In 1758 the Virginian 
Assembly passed the so-called Twopenny Act under which 
salaries were to be paid, not in pounds of tobacco, but in 
pence at the very low rate of two pence per pound of to- 
bacco. The clergy were naturally indignant and their 
diocesan, the Bishop of London, supported them. The 
Governor approved the Act; but after a war of words 
and pamphlets King George the Third’s Privy Council 
disallowed it, on the ground that the clergy were entitled 
to the tobacco or its market price. In 1763 a parson in 
Hanover county brought suit to recover his salary of 
16,000 pounds of tobacco. By the ruling of the Court 
the parson could recover; but the amount was left to the 
jury. Under these circumstances Patrick Henry was em- 
ployed to go into Court and harangue the jury. It was 
his first important appearance. Popular feeling ran high 
against royalty and the royal church. At the outset 
Henry stammered, awkward and embarrassed. But after 
a few moments natural eloquence, fired by Presbyterian 
zeal, found passionate utterance. His bold and scathing 
denunciations of the clergy drove them in a flutter from 
the crowded court house. Even royalty was roughly 
handled. The King, he cried, by upholding the claims of 
the parsons against the people of Virginia, and vetoing 
the Act of their Legislature, had forfeited all claim to 
obedience. When plaintiff's counsel charged that “‘the 


E33] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Gentleman has spoken treason,” Patrick Henry only 
grew more audacious and extravagant. Amid a scene of 
wild excitement and commotion the jury after consulting 
five minutes found a verdict of one penny for the plaintiff. 
Loud was the applause. The King’s authority had been 
challenged, and diminished, in the King’s Court of Justice. 
Patrick Henry was carried from the Court in triumph on 
the shoulders of a cheering crowd — probably to the lodg- 
ings of his young friend Jefferson. 

When Jefferson came to found a liberal University, he 
discovered, as Milton had done, that New Presbyter was 
but Old Priest writ large. The intolerance of the Presby- 
terians proved a more formidable obstacle to enlighten- 
ment than the indifference of the Anglican Clergy. But 
at this time the Presbyterians were supporting the dis- 
establishment of a rival sect. Jefferson’s notes on the 
Parson’s Case have probably perished. But an extract 
from his Common-Place book in the following year (1764) 
proves the thoroughness with which he examined the his- 
torical connection of law and religion. It was made by 
Jefferson in 1814 in a letter to his friend Thomas Cooper, 
a theoretical lawyer, who had suffered for his liberal opin- 
ions during the American Reign of Terror. ‘When I was 
a student of law,”’ wrote Jefferson, “‘now half a century 
ago, after getting through Coke on Littleton, whose 
matter cannot be abridged, I was in the habit of abridging 
and common-placing what I read meriting it, and of 
sometimes mixing my own reflections on the subject. I 
now enclose you the extract from these entries which 
I promised. They were written at the time of life when I 
was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to fol- 
low truth and reason to whatever results they led, and 
bearding every authority which stood in their way. This 


[ 34 ] 


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Student of Law 


must be the apology, if you find the conclusions bolder 
than historical facts and principles will warrant.” 

The “Sample,” number 873 in the Common-Place book, 
answers the question “‘Whether Christianity is part of the 
Common Law,” and is worth reading as a proof of Jeffer- 
son’s industry, learning, and legal dexterity. The argu- 
ment turns on the meaning of “‘ancien scripture” in 
Prisot (c. 5.) which Finch had translated “‘Holy Scrip- 
tures.”’ Sir Matthew Hale declared that Christianity is 
parcel of the laws of England, and derived thence his 
authority for burning witches! Blackstone followed Hale. 
Lord Mansfield declared more cautiously that “‘the essen- 
tial principles of revealed religion are a part of the Com- 
mon Law.” Jefferson argued that “‘ancient scripture,” 
if it referred to Holy Writ, must have meant the Old Tes- 
tament, which would be absurd. 

Turning from this series of judicial utterances, Jeffer- 
son points out that the Common Law was introduced by 
the Saxons on their settlement in England in the fifth 
century, whereas the Kings of the Heptarchy only em- 
braced Christianity between 598 and 686 a.p. “Here 
then was a space of two hundred years during which the 
common law was in existence and Christianity no part of 
it.” He draws further evidence from the silence of Bracton 
and other early writers, and cites Justice Fortescue Aland 
““who possessed more Saxon learning than all the judges 
and writers before mentioned put together.” Finally he 
examines the Laws of Alfred, and shows how an “‘awk- 
ward monkish fabrication”’ prefixed to them four chapters 
of Jewish law which are inconsistent with Alfred’s Code. 
Why then did the Judges of England perpetuate these 
frauds and forgeries? Jefferson’s answer is characteris- 
ts Ge 


[35] 


“3 


Thomas Jefferson 


“Tn truth, the alliance between church and state in England has 
ever made their judges accomplices in the frauds of the clergy; and 
even bolder than they are; for instead of being contented with the sur- 
reptitious introduction of these four chapters of Exodus, they have 
taken the whole leap, and declared at once that the whole Bible and 
Testament, in a lump, make a part of the common law of the land; the 
first judicial declaration of which was by Sir Matthew Hale. And thus 
they incorporate into the English code laws made for Jews alone, and 
precepts of the gospel, intended by their benevolent author as obliga- 
tory only in foro conscientiae; and they arm the whole with the coer- 
cions of the municipal law.” 


By the time his student life ended Jefferson was one of 
the best read men in Virginia, if not in the United 
States. In proof of his prodigious industry and wide at- 
tainments we may cite a course of study which he drew 
up about this time for Madison, Monroe, and other young 
friends who were preparing for college and the Virginian 
Bar. A copy of it was sent by Jefferson in 1814 to a grand- 
son, George Wythe Randolph. Jefferson tells young Ran- 
dolph that it was “‘written near fifty years ago for the 
use of a young friend, whose course of reading was con- 
fided to me.”’ It formed, he added, “‘a basis for the studies 
of others subsequently placed under my direction.” In 
this copy the list of books recommended was revised and 
brought up to date. The paper begins by demanding as 
“absolutely necessary’? an acquaintance with the Latin 
and French languages. To these he would add Mathe- 
matics and Natural Philosophy, as not only useful in the 
most familiar occurrences of life, but ‘‘peculiarly engaging 
and delightful.” Besides, the faculties of the mind, like 
the members of the body, are strengthened and improved 
by exercise. ‘‘Mathematical reasonings and deductions 
are therefore a fine preparation for investigating the ab- 
struse speculations of the law.” 


[ 36 | 


Student of Law 


A list of books on Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography, 
and Natural Philosophy follows; and our young pro- 
fessor proceeds: “‘This foundation being laid, you may 
enter regularly on the study of the law, taking with it such 
of its kindred sciences as will contribute to eminence in its 
attainment ... The carrying on several studies at a 
time is attended with advantage. Variety relieves the 
mind as well as the eye . . . The mean is therefore to be 
steered, and a competent space of time allotted to each 
branch of study.” A day’s reading is accordingly divided 
into five parts. 


1. Till eight in the morning employ yourself to Physical studies, 
namely Agriculture, Chemistry, Anatomy, Zoology, Botany Ethics, 
and Natural Religion, Religion Sectarian and Natural Law. Under 
Agriculture the books to be read include Tull and Arthur Young; 
under Ethics come Locke, Stewart, Condorcet, Cicero, Seneca, Hutche- 
son, etc.; under ‘Religion Sectarian’ the Bible, Sterne’s sermons, and 
Priestley’s Corruptions.of Christianity; under Natural Law, Vattel. 

2. From eight to twelve read Law. After tracing a general course 
of reading in the Common Law and Chancery, Jefferson gives a list of 
law books, and then adds: “In reading the reporters enter in a com- 
mon-place book every case of value, condensed into the narrowest 
compass possible, which will admit of presenting distinctly the princi- 
ples of the case. This operation is doubly useful, insomuch as it obliges 
the student to seek out the pith of the case, and habituates him to a 
condensation of thought, and to an acquisition of the most valuable of 
all the talents, that of never using two words where one will do.” 

3. From twelve to one read Politics. Here the books to be read in- 
clude Locke on Government, Sidney’s Discourses on Government, 
Priestley’s First Principles of Government, Montesquieu, Hatsell’s 
Precedents of the House of Commons, Select Parliamentary Debates 
of England and Ireland, The Federalist, Say’s Economic Politique, 
Malthus on Population, and de Tracy’s Political Economy ‘now about 
to be printed.’ (1814) 

4. In the afternoon read History. This course comprises the Greek 
and Latin historians in the original, Gibbon’s Roman Empire; for 


hea 


Thomas Jefferson 


Modern Europe, Millot, Russel and Robertson, and a number of Eng- 
lish and American writers, including Bacon’s Henry the Seventh, Cam- 
den’s Elizabeth, Hume ‘republicanised and abridged,’ Robertson’s 
America, Ramsay’s History of the American Revolution, and Burk’s 
History of Virginia. 

5. From dark to bedtime. The last hours of the day or rather night 
are assigned to belles lettres, criticism, rhetoric and oratory. Among 
poets “Shakespeare must be singled out by one who wishes to learn 
the full powers of the English language.” Among books of criticism 
Tooke’s Diversions of Purley is recommended. For rhetoric and pros- 
ody, Blair, Sheridan and Mason. 


Among forensic efforts Eugene Aram’s defence is singled 
out as ‘‘a model of logic, condensation of matter and 
classical purity of style.” 

In spite of the books added to, or substituted for, the 
old list (unfortunately lost) Jefferson wrote apologetically 
of the paper as betraying its juvenile date. That is what 
makes it valuable; for it gives us a glimpse of the stu- 
dent’s habits and methods. It helps us to trace the pedi- 
gree of his ideas, in so far as they were drawn from the 
projectors and philosophers of the past. For we shall 
never understand Jefferson if we leave out his inexhaust- 
ible appetite for knowledge; nor appreciate his consist- 
ency and idealism, if we forget that he was well versed in 
Sidney and Locke before he plunged into politics. The 
word statesman is often misapplied in our over-governed 
democracies. It is too often bestowed on men of small 
parts and no character, who have by hook or by crook ob- 
tained high office. No one need inquire about their fa- 
vourite books in looking for a key to their policies. For 
when the key is put in the lock, and the box opened, it 
will be found empty. They live from hand to mouth with- 
out foresight or retrospect; they spread their sails to 
every passing breeze; they steer without chart or com- 


[ 38 ] 


Student of Law 


pass. But Jefferson is the type of a true statesman. He 
read hard and thought hard for years before venturing 
upon the practice of law and politics. To seekers after 
the history of republican ideas, and of the constitutional 
changes which have overturned all the old systems of gov- 
ernment in the century succeeding his death, no demo- 
cratic leader of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 
will afford more profitable study than Thomas Jefferson. 

Meanwhile a new drama was being prepared which 
would give the political genius and military talents of 
Virginia a field of opportunity, and magnify the little 
provincial stage of Williamsburg into a grand amphi- 
theatre with all the world for onlookers. Two men, 
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who might 
have remained in obscurity, were thereby to win renown, 
the one as a general and statesman, the other as a states- 
man and philosopher. 

But before either of them dreamed of American Inde- 
pendence Patrick Henry was on the revolutionary war 
path. He did as much to inflame young Virginia against 
church and king as Samuel Adams to incense New Eng- 
land against the pretensions and encroachments of the 
English government. 

In 1764, the year after the Parson’s Case, George Gren- 
ville’s administrations adopted measures for taxing the 
American Colonies, for strengthening the Navigation Acts, 
and for tightening up the British monopoly of Colonial 
trade. Pitt’s glorious war with France had left a large 
debt, a depression of trade, heavy taxes and much popu- 
lar discontent. The Colonial policy of Grenville was jus- 
tified in parliament by the cost of expelling the French 
from Canada and the Mississippi region. For these ser- 
vices the Colonies must be called upon to show their 


[ 39 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


gratitude, and it was announced that in the following 
year a stamp tax would be imposed on business transac- 
tions in America. Wills, mortgages, contracts, news- 
papers, almanacs, etc. were to be subjected to stamp 
duties varying from threepence to ten pounds. The pro- 
ceeds were to be spent on the support of British troops 
quartered in the Colonies for the purpose of quelling dis- 
affected French and Indians in the newly conquered ter- 
ritories. 

After a war, however victorious, taxes are never popu- 
lar. The people who pay the piper are seldom grateful to 
those who called the tune. The American colonies had 
contributed men and money to the war. Some of them 
were still smarting from severe losses at the hands of the 
French and Indians. They had acquiesced in the Navi- 
gation Laws, though they often murmured against them. 
They were accustomed to an Imperial tariff, and the New 
Englanders at least were pretty skilful smugglers. The 
regulation of overseas trade and navigation had always 
been an imperial concern. But the Stamp Act was a dan- 
gerous encroachment upon the self-governing powers of 
the Colonial Assemblies and upon their local sources of 
revenue. The Colonists were jealous of their rights and 
by no means inclined to welcome, much less to support, a 
garrison of British soldiers. 

The Stamp Act, announced by Grenville in the Budget 
of 1764, was passed in the following March. Colonial peti- 
tions against it, on the ground that parliament had no 
right to tax the Colonies, were refused consideration under 
a rule of procedure forbidding petitions against certain 
classes of Money Bills. The news of the passing of the 
Stamp Act reached America early inApril,1765. Strangely 
enough it evoked no serious demonstration from the New 


[ 40 ] 


Student of Law 


Englanders, either in their legislative assemblies or popu- 
lar meetings. It was in loyal, aristocratic Virginia that 
the constitutional challenge was thrown down and the 
might of parliament defied. 

Again it was Jefferson’s friend, Patrick Henry, who 
stepped forward : — 

“the forest born Demosthenes 
Whose thunder shook the Philip of the Seas;” 

and this time his oration shook the foundations, not of a 
Colonial church, but of a Colonial Empire. The session 
of the House of Burgesses was nearly over. The Conserva- 
tive leaders, the men of family, influence, and property, 
had no intention of making trouble over the Stamp Act. 
Patrick Henry was, as he wrote long afterwards, a new 
member, young, inexperienced, unacquainted with the 
forms of the House or the members that composed it. 
But “finding the men of weight averse to opposition, and 
the commencement of the tax at hand, and that no person 
was likely to step forth,” he determined to venture; and 
“alone, unadvised, and unassisted”’ wrote his resolutions 
on the blank leaf of an old law book, and brought them 
before the House : — 


“Violent debate ensued, many threats were uttered and much abuse 
cast on me by the party for submission. After a long and warm con- 
test, the resolutions passed by a very small majority, perhaps of one or 
two only. The alarm spread throughout America with astonishing 
quickness, and the ministerial parties were overwhelmed. The great 
point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in 
the colonies. This brought on the war which finally separated the two 
countries and gave independence to ours.” 


Henry’s resolutions, five in number, asserted in un- 
equivocal terms that the Colonists enjoyed all British 
privileges and immunities, and that their general assembly 
possessed “‘the sole right and power to levy taxes and im- 


[41 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


positions upon the inhabitants of this colony.’’ Wythe, 
Pendleton, Peyton Randolph, and other leading men op- 
posed them, contending that the same sentiments had 
been expressed previously in a more prudent and concilia- 
tory manner. Henry’s fiery eloquence just carried the 
day. One passage from his speech has come down to us: 
“Ceesar,” he cried, “‘had his Brutus, Charles the First his 
Cromwell, and George the Third —” “‘Treason,” cried 
the Speaker, ‘Treason, treason’’ echoed the Conserva- 
tive members. But Henry, unshaken by the interrup- 
tions, completed his sentence: ‘‘and George the Third 
may profit by their example. If this be treason make the 
most of it.” 

During this debate Jefferson, as he tells us, stood at the 
door of the lobby of the House of Burgesses. “‘I heard 
the splendid display of Mr. Henry’s talents as a popular 
orator. They were great indeed; such as I have never 
heard from any other man. He appeared to me to speak 
as Homer wrote.” 

Many years later in a letter to Wirt, who was writing 
Patrick Henry’s life, Jefferson did justice to the moderate 


Patty coe 


“Subsequent events favoured the bolder spirits of Henry, the Lees, 
Pages, Mason, etc., with whom I went in all points. Sensible, however, 
of the importance of unanimity among our constituents, although we 
often wished to have gone faster, we slackened our pace, that our less 
ardent colleagues might keep up with us; and they, on their part, dif- | 
fering nothing from us in principle, quickened their gait somewhat 
beyond that which their prudence might of itself have advised, and 
thus consolidated the phalanx which breasted the power of Britain. 
By this harmony of the bold with the cautious, we advanced with our 
constituents in undivided mass, and with fewer examples of separation 
than, perhaps, existed in any other part of the Union.” ! 


1 Jefferson to Wirt, August 14, 1814. 


[ 42 ] 


Student of Law 


These resolutions fanned into a flame the gathering dis- 
content of the Northern Colonies. In many places riots 
broke out. Boxes of stamps were burnt. Nobody would 
buy or use a stamp. Pitt espoused the American cause. 
The British relented a little, and in the following year after 
a long debate the Stamp Act was repealed. Virginia re- 
posed again. Patrick Henry returned to his briefs and 
Jefferson resumed his studies. 


[ 43 ] 


CHAPTER IV 
BARRISTER AND POLITICIAN, 1767 TO 1773 


EFFERSON usually spent his summer vacations at Shad- 
well, and there in 1764 he celebrated his twenty-first 
birthday by planting an avenue of locust trees. He 

was now squire and Justice of the Peace and master of a 
fine estate. But his happiness was soon clouded by the 
death of his eldest sister who had been a near and very 
dear companion. Among his papers after his death was 
found a Latin epitaph, touching in its simplicity :— 


“Ah, Joanna, puellarum optima, 
Ah, aevi virentis flore praerepta, 
Sit tibi terra levis; ! 
Longe, longeque valeto.” 


In the following spring (1766) Jefferson began his trav- 
els. Leaving his native state for the first time he visited 
Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York. At Annapolis 
he saw the rejoicings over the repeal of the Stamp Act. 
At Philadelphia he was inoculated against smallpox by 
the then famous Dr. Shippen. At New York he stayed 
with Elbridge Gerry and made a friendship which was 
afterwards to assume political importance. A year later — 
in the spring of 1767 — after spending under his “‘ beloved 
mentor’? George Wythe nearly as many years in legal 
studies as Patrick Henry had spent weeks, Jefferson was 
called to the Virginian Bar. He was entering his twenty- 


1 Randall and others give ‘laevis’ (smooth) for ‘levis’ (light) ! 


[ 44] 


Barrister and Politician, 1767 to 1773 


fourth year and stepped almost at once into a good prac- 
tice, which continued, as he says, “until the Revolution 
shut up the Courts of Justice.” 

Jefferson kept a register of all his general court cases. 
In his first year he had sixty-eight, and in all subsequent 
years to the end of 1773 over a hundred. In 1774 when 
all business began to be upset by the turmoil of Revolution, 
his practice declined; and in August he transferred it to 
his kinsman Edmund Randolph, son of Sir John Randolph, 
nephew of Peyton Randolph, and afterwards Attorney 
General in Washington’s first Administration. There is no 
record extant of his work in the county courts. But we 
know that he was retained in no less than 430 cases during 
the year 1771. In those days it was not possible to make 
a great fortune at the Bar of Virginia.1. Jefferson’s profits 
averaged about three thousand dollars a year; and it is 
thought that only Wythe, Pendleton, Patrick Henry, and 
perhaps two or three others enjoyed a larger income. Of 
his legal ability and acumen there can be no doubt, nor 
that he would have distinguished himself as judge or jurist, 
if he had preferred professional advancement to the public 
service. True it is that he was no orator, but then oratory 
was not often required in the Court Room. His voice, we 
are told, if raised much above conversational tones, “ be- 
came husky and sank in his throat.’”’ Madison gave this as 
the reason why Jefferson never addressed speeches of more 
than a few sentences to popular legislative bodies; but he 
had heard him argue a case before a judge “‘fluently and 
well.” Jefferson Randolph, anxious to learn about his 
grandfather’s reputation at the Bar, once asked an old 
man who had often heard him in court, how he ranked as 


1The maximum fees were fixed by a Virginian Statute at 500 pounds of to- 
bacco in the Supreme or General Court and at 150 pounds in the county courts. 


[45 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


a pleader. “‘Well,’’ was the reply, “it is hard to tell, be- 
cause he always took the right side.”’ 

Afterwards at Congress, and in the legislative assembly 
of Virginia, Jefferson came to share Washington’s dislike 
of public oratory and consequently of the lawyers who 
infested public bodies. Long speeches, he said, usually 
came from lawyers, “‘whose trade it 1s to contest every- 
thing, concede nothing, and talk by the hour.”’ In his eyes 
a Congressman, or Senator, who consumed public time by 
useless verbosity, deserved castigation as richly as if he 
were wasting public money. Whether in the service of 
the state or in retirement Jefferson felt that time was the 
most precious of all commodities. For that reason he 
practised punctuality, but confessed in his old age to Van 
Buren that (owing to the unpunctuality of others) this 
habit had proved unprofitable. Experience had taught 
him the truth of an Oxford epigram that “punctuality is 
the thief of time.” 

At twenty-six Jefferson was ready to take a hand in 
politics. Two years after his admission to the Bar, he was 
elected a member of the Virginian House of Burgesses to 
represent Albemarle county. Like George Washington, 
who had stood for Frederick county eleven years before, 
Jefferson kept open house and treated the free and inde- 
pendent electors to punch as freely as the customs of Colo- 
nial Virginia required. Soon after his election, on May 11, 
1769, the Assembly was convened, and the new member 
was honoured with the task of drafting a ““most humble 
and dutiful address”? to Governor Botetourt, who had 
succeeded Fauquier. With the repeal of the Stamp Act 
the storm it provoked had blown over, and the new 
customs duties had not been much noticed in Virginia. 
The new governor was popular. He came in a State coach 


[ 46 ] 


Barrister and Politician, 1767 to 1773 


given him by the King, with six milk-white horses, and was 
received with royal honours. An ode on the occasion 
printed in the Virginia Gazette began: — 


“Virginia see thy governor appears! 
The peaceful olive on his brow he wears! 
Sound the shrill trumpets, beat the rattling drums! 
From great Britannia’s isle his Lordship comes.” 


The address drafted by Jefferson thanked him for his 
‘very affectionate speech,” expressed “‘our firm attach- 
ment to his Majesty’s sacred person,” and assured him 
that any matters affecting the interests of Great Britain 
‘shall ever be discussed on this ruling principle that her 
interests and ours are inseparably the same.” This draft, 
however, was not thought good enough, and Jefferson was 
mortified. At that time the esteem of the world, he con- 
fessed to Madison, was perhaps of higher value than any- 
thing else in it. 

After two days of ceremony and interchange of com- 
pliments the newly elected Assembly proceeded to con- 
sider a circular letter from Massachusetts inviting her 
sister colonies to concert measures for resisting the Town- 
shend duties.! On the third day four Resolutions were in- 
troduced. The first declared that there must be no taxa- 
tion without representation; the second declared that the 
Colonies might co-operate for the redress of grievances; 
the third denounced the proposal to deport from the Colo- 
nies persons accused of treason for trial in Great Britain; 
and the fourth promised an Address on these matters to 
King George beseeching his Royal interposition. 

These resolutions were passed almost unanimously, and 
the Speaker, Peyton Randolph, was instructed to send a 


‘ 


1On tea, glass, paper, etc., just introduced by Townshend in his 1767 budget. 


[47] 


Thomas Jefferson 


copy to all other legislative assemblies “‘on this continent.” 
On the fifth day at noon Governor Botetourt commanded 
the House to attend in the Council Chamber and spoke as 
follows: ‘‘Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of 
Burgesses: I have heard of your resolves and augur ill of 
their effects. You have made it my duty to dissolve you, 
and you are dissolved accordingly.” 

Thus after five days Jefferson’s first parliament ceased 
to exist. But there had been time for him to suffer two 
reverses. His draft Address had not been accepted, anda 
Bill which he introduced to enable slave owners to manu- 
mit their slaves had been defeated. 

Next day 88 out of 110 members met at the Apollo 
Room of the Raleigh Tavern, and an Association was 
formed by a group including George Washington, R. H. 
Lee, Patrick Henry, and Jefferson, pledging themselves 
and recommending their constituents not to buy certain 
articles of British merchandise so long as the Townshend 
duties remained in force. Thereupon, says Jefferson in 
his Memoir, they repaired to their several counties, and all 
the members were re-elected save “‘the very few who had 
declined assent to our proceedings.” 3 

The list of articles banned shows what a valuable cus- 
tomer British merchants and manufacturers had in Vir- 
ginia, and how much Virginia got in exchange for her to- 


bacco. The list included 


“pewter, hoes, axes, watches, clocks, tables, chairs, looking-glasses, 
carriages, cabinet work, upholstery, jewelry, plate and gold, silver- 
ware, ribbons, millinery, lace, India goods except spices, silks except 
sewing silk, cambric, lawn, muslin, calico, cotton or linen stuffs above 
2s. per yard, woollens above 1s. 6d., broadcloths above 8s., narrow 
cloths above 3s., hats, stockings, shoes, boots, saddles, and all leather- 
work,” 
1Cp. Burk’s History of Virginia, vol. Ill, p. 345. 


[ 48 | 


Barrister and Politician, 1767 to 1773 


The signatories agreed further that they would never 
buy any article taxed by Britain to raise revenue in Amer- 
ica excepting paper, which they could not either make or 
dispense with. They also decided to save all the lambs for 
wool, to be spun and woven at home. 

Lord Botetourt, a sensible man, was impressed by these 
proceedings, and wrote accordingly home. Soon after- 
wards he again convened the Assembly and gave them the 
reassuring news that the British Government had decided 
to change its policy. His announcement was received 
with great joy. At a later date— when Lord North and 
the King revived the contention — Lord Botetourt in- 
dignantly asked to be recalled, but died before receiving 
permission to return. His statue, erected in front of 
the College, still stands, an eloquent proof of the high 
esteem in which he was held and continued to be held by 
the people after they had thrown down all the other 
statues and emblems of Royalty. 

For the time being the tension was relaxed; for Lord 
North proposed and carried a Bill repealing the Customs 
tariff on American imports imposed by the Act of 1767, 
with the exception, fatal as it proved, of the tea duty, 
which was retained in order to assert the principle that 
parliament had a right to tax the Colonies. A lull followed. 
In Jefferson’s words “‘nothing of particular excitement 
occurring for a considerable time, our countrymen seemed 
to fall into a state of insensibility to our situation.” 

Early in 1770 the family home at Shadwell was burnt 
to the ground. It was a hard blow for Jefferson. His fa- 
vourite fiddle was saved; but most of his books and manu- 
scripts were destroyed. Ina letter to John Page, February 
28, 1770, he says he had lost “‘every paper I had in the 
world and almost every book.” He estimates the cost of 


[49 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


books burned at £200 sterling. ‘““Would to God it had 
been the money, then had it never cost me a sigh! To 
make the loss more sensible, it fell principally on my books 
of Common Law, of which I have but one left, at that 
time lent out. Of papers too of every kind I am utterly 
destitute. All of these, whether public or private, of busi- 
ness or of amusement, have perished in the flames.” 

As it happened one “‘pavilion”’ of the new home he was 
building on Monticello was just ready for occupation. 
“‘T have here,” he wrote to another friend in the following 
February, “but one room.”’ It served him for parlour, 
kitchen, hall, bedchamber, and study. He had another 
reason now for pressing on the construction; for he had 
fallen in love with a beautiful young widow, Martha 
Skelton. Her father, John Wayles, was a popular member 
of the bar with a fine estate near Williamsburg, called 
“The Forest.”” There Jefferson had often spent an even- 
ing and played duets with Martha, who shared his taste 
for music. During his courtship we find in his correspond- 
ence a curious letter ordering various luxuries from Eng- 
land to be paid for by ashipment of tobacco. In the course 
of this (June 1, 1771) Jefferson wrote :— 


“T must alter one article in the invoice. I wrote therein for a Clavi- 
chord. I have since seen a Forte-piano and am charmed with it. Send 
me this instrument instead of the Clavichord: let the case be of fine 
mahogany, solid, not veneered, the compass from Double G to F in alt, 
and plenty of spare strings; and the workmanship of the whole very 
handsome and worthy of the acceptance of a lady for whom I intend 
it. I must add also 3 doz. pr. India cotton stockings for myself at 10/- 
sterl. pr pair, 3 doz. pr. best white silk do.; and a large umbrella with 
brass ribs, covered with green silk, and neatly finished. By this change 
of the Clavichord into a Forte-piano and addition of the other things, 
I shall be brought in debt to you, to discharge which I will ship you of 
the first tobacco I get to the warehouse in the fall.” 


[50] 


Barrister and Politician, 1767 to 1773 


Jefferson and his lady were married on New Year’s Day, 
1772, by which time Monticello was ready to receive her. 
After the wedding festivities the happy pair left ‘‘ The For- 
est’’ in achaise for Monticello, a drive of more than a hun- 
dred miles. There had been a light fall of snow before 
they left, which increased in depth as they advanced up 
country. At last they had to quit the carriage and proceed 
on horseback. After pausing in Blenheim, eight miles 
from Monticello, they rode on at sunset. The snow lay 
eighteen inches deep on the mountain track. It was late 
at night when they arrived. The fires were out, and the 
negro servants had left to sleep in their cottages. But the 
bride and bridegroom were too happy to be troubled by 
darkness or cold. A bottle of wine was drawn out from 
behind a book shelf, and soon the silence of the night was 
broken by merry songs. 

It is clear from Jefferson’s correspondence that the Vir- 
ginian Association to boycott British goods relaxed its 
measures after 1770, when all the Townshend customs 
duties except the tea duty were repealed. On February 
20, 1771, for example, Jefferson writes from Monticello 
to a shipping agent consigning two hogsheads of tobacco 
for which he expects to get £100 sterling. The money, he 
says, is to be “laid out in the purchase of the articles on 
the back hereof. You will observe that part of these arti- 
cles (such as are licensed by the association) are to be sent 
at any event. Another part (being prohibited) are only to 
be sent if the tea act should be repealed before you get 
home; if it is not, you will observe a third class to be sent 
instead of those prohibited. I am not without expectation 
that the repeal may take place. I believe the parliament 
want nothing but a colourable motive to adopt this meas- 
ure.” At this time Jefferson was replacing his lost books ; 


Bema 


Thomas Jefferson 


he mentions two parcels costing nearly £90 sterling, which 
he is expecting from London. Another commission to his 
London agent does not suggest the stern republican sim- 
plicity of the future President: “‘One further favour and 
Iam done; to search the Herald’s office for the arms of my 
family. I have what I have been told were the family 
arms, but on what authority I know not. It is possible 
there may be none. If so, I would with your assistance 
become a purchaser, having Sterne’s word for it that a 
coat of arms may be purchased as cheap as any other 
coatiy 

In the political lull of 1771 and 1773 Jefferson was busy 
with his practice in chambers at Williamsburg, and on cir- 
cuit. In the General Court he pleaded (unsuccessfully) 
the case of an unfortunate youth who had been sold into 
slavery because he was the grandson of a mulatto woman. 
He also presented a learned argument on the question 
whether the churchwardens and vestrymen of a parish 
in Nansemond county could eject their parson for drunken 
and profligate conduct.! The times were not propitious 
to reformers. “During the regal Government nothing 
liberal could expect success,” wrote Jefferson long after- 
wards in his autobiographical memoir. But the political 
clouds gathered again in 1773. Jefferson’s first spell of 
happiness on his little mountain was soon to be broken. 
He had lavished much time and thought on the architec- 
ture of the house and on laying out the grounds. His gar- 
den book shows the interest he took in all that related 
to flowers and plants. From 1766 onwards, whenever he 
was at home, he jotted down with unflagging zest all the 


1See collection of Law Reports (published in 1829) entitled Reports of 
Cases Determined in the General Court of Virginia from 1730 to 1740 and from 
1768 to 1772. 


[ 52] 


Barrister and Politician, 1767 to 1773 


incidents of vegetable life from the appearance of the first 
leaf or blossom in the spring to the day when his wheat 
was ready for the sickle. In this and in the less romantic 
account book we find, as Sarah Randolph remarks, a pre- 
cision and fondness for minute detail rare in one whose 
reflections on nature, life, and society were so extensive 
and profound. At Monticello he usually read and wrote 
in the morning, and spent the early hours of the afternoon 
on horseback. This was his favourite exercise. A bold 
and graceful rider, he kept only horses of the best blood 
of the Old Virginia stock. Asa young man, we are told, he 
was exacting and fastidious. When his groom brought 
him his mount, he would pass a white cambric handker- 
chief over the horse’s neck and send it back to the stable 
if any dust was left on the handkerchief. 

To understand Jefferson aright we must think of him 
not only as a statesman, lawyer, diplomatist, philosopher, 
but also as an original architect, an ingenious mechanic, a 
scientific farmer, and a lover of nature whence he drew so 
much health and happiness, thus realizing the blessing 
promised by Rome’s divine poet :— 


“Fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestes 
Panaque Sylvanumque senem nymphasque sorores.”’ ! 


Everything now seemed to promise prosperity and hap- 
piness — a lovely and devoted wife, a fine estate, and an 
ample income of three thousand dollars from his practice 
and two thousand from his farms. On the death of Mr. 
Wayles in 1773 the estates were divided between his three 
daughters. Mrs. Jefferson’s portion was about equal to 
her husband’s patrimony; and would have made up for 


1“ Fortunate too is he who has known the rural deities, Pan and old Sylvanus 
and the sister nymphs,” 


[53 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


the loss of his income from the law, if only peace had been 
preserved; if only war had not made havoc of the land. 
In the same year a grievous blow fell upon Jefferson 
in the death of his dearest friend, Dabney Carr, whose 
promising career was cut short by fever in May, 1773. 
Carr had married Jefferson’s fourth sister, Martha, eight 
years before. Their married felicity was described by Jef- 
ferson in a lively letter to Page, February 21, 1770: — 


“This friend of ours, Page, in a very small house, with a table, half 
a dozen chairs, and one or two servants, is the happiest man in the uni- 
verse. Every incident in life he so takes as to render it a source of 
pleasure. With as much benevolence as the heart of man will hold, 
but with an utter neglect of the costly apparatus of life, he exhibits to 
the world a new phenomenon in philosophy — the Samian sage in the 
tub of the cynic.” 

Jefferson laid his friend beneath their favourite oak in 
what was to be the burial place of the Jefferson family, 
and is now visited by every pilgrim to the grounds of 
Monticello. He took his widowed sister and her young 
family, three sons and three daughters, into his own home 
and educated the children. This generosity was repaid by 
the most devoted affection and loyalty. One and all, says 
Randall, would gladly have laid down their lives for him. 


[54] 





VWKKQWWww NOE oy 





GHAR DERG, 


THE RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF AMERICA 


“By such management, by the irresistible operation of feeble coun- 
cils, so paltry a sum as threepence in the eyes of a financier, so insig- 
nificant an article as tea in the eyes of a philosopher, have shaken the 
pillars of a commercial Empire that circled the whole globe.” 

— Epmunp Burke on American Taxation, April 19, 1774 


INCE Edmund Burke no English writer of the first 
rank, with two brilliant exceptions, W. H. Lecky 
and Sir George Trevelyan, has studied the American 

side of the American Revolution. The architects who 
designed and built the Republic of the West; the master 
mariners who steered it through the storms and tempests 
of its infancy into unmolested security, have not attracted 
the attention of our biographers and historians. Macau- 
lay, Carlyle, Froude, Morley, Bryce, and other masters of 
the craft, left that most momentous chapter of American 
history unadorned and almost untouched. Even the pro- 
saic industry of Gardiner and the Archivists has abandoned 
these fields to American ploughmen. One English writer 
indeed in recent times threw up a cloud of glittering dust- 
around the career of Alexander Hamilton. But this over- 
coloured portrait, painted in the heyday of commercial 
Imperialism by a disciple of Mr. Chamberlain, belongs to 
fiction rather than to history. 

But if English men of letters have neglected the great 
age of American statesmanship, American authors have 
told and retold the story, so inglorious to the old Mon- 


[55] 


Thomas Jefferson 


archy, so glorious to the new Republic; so bitter to tyr- 
anny, so sweet to liberty. In these histories and biogra- 
phies, and especially in some of the multitudinous text 
books prepared for the edification of American schools and 
Universities, a false note is too often struck. Too often the 
policy pursued by George the Third, Townshend, and Lord 
North towards the American Colonies is treated as a 
national policy representing the aims and inclinations of 
the English people. Englishmen have long ago acknowl- 
edged and repented the misdeeds of George the Third and 
his Ministers; but a vast majority of them at the time 
were unconsulted and had no vote or voice. Fifty years 
after a peace which acknowledged the independence of 
their American colonies they made an orderly revolution 
at home and threw off the yoke of oppression. They began 
to reform their parliament, their municipal government, 
their poor laws, their civil service, and their system of 
Colonial administration. They learned not only in the 
hard school of war and suffering, but also in the philo- 
sophic pages of Adam Smith and Bentham, the virtues of 
freedom and self-government. Unhappily the seeds of 
mischief, sown in a moment of corruption and imperial 
pride, brought forth for generations many harvests of ill 
will in America towards the English people, who were not 
at all responsible for the war and had no means of prevent- 
ing it. In 1774 seven hundred voters in England and 
Wales elected 56 members of parliament, and 11,000 
elected 254. Cornwall returned four times as many mem- 
bers as London and Middlesex. Manchester and many 
other large towns were totally unrepresented. In Scotland 
the elections were a farce. All the machinery of govern- 
ment was controlled either by the king and his ministers, 
or by the landed aristocracy and country gentlemen. Only 


[ 56] 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


in a handful of English boroughs and counties were there 
enough voters to secure the occasional election of a popu- 
lar candidate. 

In spite of the lies disseminated by a venal press, min- 
isterial measures for the conciliation of America would 
have won general approval. The only complaint we can 
fairly level against the English people in 1774 and 1775 is 
that, uneducated and systematically misinformed, without 
arms, politically powerless, they were unripe for revolu- 
tion. If the unenfranchised labourers and mechanics of 
Britain had neither strength nor spirit to fight for their 
own liberties, they at least refused to serve against those 
of America. They could not put down the Press gang, 
or prevent their rulers from hiring German mercenaries. 
George the Third dragged his ministers along the path 
of coercion not to please the people but to please himself. 
In February, 1775, Lord Camden thus summed up public 
opinion in England: ‘‘ The landed interest 1s almost alto- 
gether anti-American, though the common people hold 
the war in abhorrence and the merchants and tradesmen 
for obvious reasons are likewise against it.” Eighteen 
months earlier Benjamin Franklin, then agent of Massa- 
chusetts in London, had told Cushing, Speaker of the 
Massachusetts Assembly, that ‘America had many 
friends and well wishers’’ in England: “‘there seems to 
be, even among the country gentlemen, a growing sense of 
our importance, a disapprobation of the harsh measures 
with which we have been treated, and a wish that some 
means might be found of peaceful reconciliation.”’ Had 
there been two Franklins, one to remain in London, the 
other to take the place of Samuel Adams in Boston, it 1s 
just possible that, in spite of George the Third, war and 
separation would have been postponed. In that, as in 


[57] 


Thomas Jefferson 


most cases, war postponed would have been war avoided ; 
for fifty years later, the Colonies would have been strong 
enough to achieve without risk of war, practical indepen- 
dence if not complete separation. But, resistance with- 
out rebellion, it must be conceded, would have entailed 
on our New Englanders a degree of patience and forbear- 
ance not to be expected of a high-spirited race which has 
often underestimated the value of peace, when weighed in 
the scales against politics or religion, and has always been 
more than a little too fond of fighting for its own sake. 
The same criticism may perhaps be applied to the English 
Parliamentary leaders who precipitated the war with 
Charles the First, and to the Administration of President 
Lincoln, especially in its handling of the Virginians in 
1860. When we reflect on the cruelty and injustice, the 
sufferings of the innocent, the thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of good and brave men who perished, on the ruined 
homes and bankruptcies and pauperism, to say nothing 
of the moral depravity and political corruption left in 
their train by these three Civil Wars, we are reluctant to 
believe that the side which was manifestly in the right 
(and in each case after several years of bloodshed proved 
victorious) might not, with a little more patience, a little 
more statescraft, a little more of geniality and flexibility of 
temper in its leaders, have gained gradually by peaceful 
obstinacy and dogged perseverance what it achieved by 
the glittering hazards and splendid miseries of war. That 
the Americans in 1773 had a strong weapon short of war 
in their hands cannot be gainsaid. That weapon was the 
purchasing power of the Colonies. It had been employed 
successfully against the Stamp Act. What was the use of a 
Stamp Act, if the people would not buy the stamps? 
It had been employed again against the Townshend 


[58 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


duties, and again with success, though the success was not 
quite complete, because George the Third insisted on re- 
taining the tea duty as an emblem of British rule over the 
Colonies. 

To British manufacturers, shipowners, and merchants 
the American trade meant much. Those Colonies took, 
before the boycott began, more than a quarter of the whole 
annual value of British exports, then computed at sixteen 
millions sterling. Their numbers and their wealth had 
more than doubled in twenty-five years — and no wonder ; 
for the Colonies seemed a paradise to European workmen ; 
and many besides the villagers of Sweet Auburn were 
ready to brave the horrors and perils of an Atlantic voy- 
age in order to gain a country where industrious poverty 
was unknown, where carpenters and bricklayers got the 
equivalent of five shillings a day in English money, and 
where any enterprising labourer might by hard work and 
thrift become a prosperous freeholder. 

The Colonial Associations had agreed not to import va- 
rious classes of British goods, and so effective were their ar- 
rangements that in a single year the value of the banned 
imports fell from £1,300,000 to £400,000. As for the tea 
duty of threepence in the pound (retained by Lord North 
when the other Townshend duties were repealed), its net 
yield was only £300, though the continuance of the boy- 
cott, which its retention involved, cost Great Britain “‘at 
least five thousand times as much in trade alone, over 
and above the cost of naval and military preparations.” ? 

1See The American Revolution by Sir George Trevelyan, Part I, Chapters II 
and III. It was only by the casting vote of Lord North, given against his own 
judgment in obedience to the King’s wishes, that the Grafton Cabinet in 1770 
retained this trumpery duty on tea. Nothing is more certain in history than 


that King George the Third was the principal agent and contriver of the war 
which separated the English people from their Colonists in America. 


[59] 


Thomas Jefferson 


The East India Company, which was losing heavily by 
the Colonial embargo, begged for the repeal of the three- 
penny duty; but the King was resolved, as North said, 
“to try the question,” and reduce his American subjects 
to submission. They on their part were now thoroughly 
roused, and were resolved not to submit on any terms to 
pay any duty levied bya British Parliament, even though 
by a complicated device it was arranged that dutiable 
tea should be cheaper than smuggled tea. 

So the question was tried. Tea ships were despatched in 
the autumn of 1773 to the four chief American ports, 
Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. At 
Charleston the tea was stored in a damp vault, where it 
soon mouldered. The Philadelphians induced the captain 
to sail home without attempting to unload his cargo. 
From New York the tea ships were driven off by a timely 
gale. At Boston was enacted the drama, which caught, 
and has ever since held, the imagination of men. The 
Bostonians who threw the British tea into the harbour 
threw down at the same time a challenge to the spirit of 
imperial domination. The answer of King George and his 
docile ministers soon proved how strong that spirit was in 
the governing classes of the old country. The Power that 
had defeated France could not brook colonial indepen- 
dence. It might be unprofitable to tax the refractory 
New Englanders. But if they were refractory, it showed 
that they required chastisement; if they were unruly, 
they must be schooled into obedience. In spite of elo- 
quent protests from Burke, Chatham, Shelburne, and 
other Whig leaders, Bills were passed to close the Port of 
Boston, to suppress town meetings in Massachusetts, and 
to transfer trial for various offences from Massachusetts 
to England or Nova Scotia. At the same time four 


[ 60 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


regiments were despatched to restore order in the rebellious 
colony. 

It has been observed that nearly all great revolutions 
have sprung from religious or economic grievances. 
Among nations of Latin, and especially of Spanish blood, 
they occur so often and effect so little that their causes 
seldom merit investigation. But in Anglo-Saxon coun- 
tries neither society nor a system of government is easily 
overturned. The Norman Conquest, the Magna Charta, 
the Great Rebellion, the Glorious Revolution, American 
Independence, the Reform of 1832, are all political and 
social events of tremendous import in the wonderful story 
of our race. In every case the causes and consequences 
have a higher significance, a deeper seriousness, to the 
student of life and politics than the actual struggle —a 
war, an abdication, an execution, or the sudden surrender 
of an old established authority — which captivates the 
popular imagination. How many of those who have trem- 
bled with excitement over Marston Moor and Naseby ever 
read Clarendon’s introductory chapters on the causes of the 
Great Rebellion, or ever puzzled their heads to discover 
the trains of thought and interest which drew Wentworth 
and Hyde, Hampden and Pym into opposing camps? 

The American Revolution grew out of discontents in 
several colonies — and those discontents, at first distinct, 
led to the connection which ended in Union. Until the 
Stamp Act was imposed, North and South had little 
in common; it required ten years of interference and 
provocation to bring them, through correspondence, 
into combination and warlike union. 

Virginia at the end of the colonial period stood first in 
population and wealth. It had over 500,000 inhabitants, 
Massachusetts about 350,000. The population of New 


[ 61 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


York State could hardly have exceeded 250,000; that of 
Pennsylvania numbered about 300,000. These four lead- 
ing colonies — Virginia, ‘Massachusetts, New York, and 
Pennsylvania — differed in religion, manners, laws, and 
population. It is not for an Englishman to decide which 
colony sacrificed or contributed most to the making of 
an American Republic. Pennsylvania boasts its Frank- 
lin, Massachusetts its John and Samuel Adams, New York 
its Alexander Hamilton. But it will be conceded that 
no colonial band of revolutionary soldiers and states- 
men, judges, writers, and orators can be found to compete 
with Virginia’s sons — with George Washington, Patrick 
Henry, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Mar- 
shall. It will be conceded too that if Virginia had not 
come forward, Massachusetts must have submitted. 

The strength of democratic sentiment in Virginia, and 
its decisive action at critical moments in the critical years 
from 1766 to 1799, are very striking, when we recall its 
prosperity as a colony, its dependence on British markets, 
and the long attachment of nearly all its richest families 
to the King, the aristocracy, and the traditions of England. 
Indeed as a state Virginia never recovered relatively to its 
northern neighbours the priority it had enjoyed as a 
colony; though thanks to Jefferson the Virginian Dynasty 
of Presidents lasted well into the nineteenth century. 

John Randolph of Roanoke, Jefferson’s brilliant and 
erratic kinsman, was fond of descanting in his old age on 
“the former prosperity of the Old Dominion, the extent 
and magnificence of the baronial establishments,” as he 
called them, “especially on the James River and the Ap- 
pomatox”’; and the splendid hospitality of their proprie- 
tors. He used to contrast those halcyon days, the good 
old times, with the times in which he spoke — talking 


[ 62 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


better, says Van Buren, on these themes “‘than I ever 
heard another man talk.” ! So far as a Colony with to- 
bacco plantations, a large slave population, and an Indian 
frontier could resemble England under the George’, Vir- 
ginia resembled it. Its Assembly and its governor were 
a colonial copy of the English Parliament and the Eng- 
lish King. The Colony had its large landowners, whose 
influence on society and administration had hitherto been 
almost undisputed. When Jefferson came of age, he was 
promptly appointed a Justice of the Peace for his county 
of Albemarle, just as a young squire would have been 
promoted on a like occasion to the County Bench in Eng- 
land. Looking back to the moment when Patrick Henry 
disturbed the established order by inflaming the religious 
and political grievances of the Non-Conformists and lower 
orders in Virginia, Jefferson remarked (August 5, 1815) on 
the insulation of Colonial Virginia. It had, he wrote, little 
intercourse either with Europe or its sister colonies. Cer- 
tain families had risen to splendour by wealth; and their 
estates had been preserved, as in England, by entail. 
Some, like the Randolphs, had produced a series of tal- 
ented men. Others had “stagnated on the grounds of 
their forefathers ; for there was no emigration to the West- 
ward in those days, the wild Irish, who had gotten pos- 
session of the valley between the Blue Ridge and North 
Mountain, forming a barrier over which none ventured to 
leap, and would still less venture to settle among.”” Thus 
until Jefferson grew to manhood society in Virginia re- 
mained stationary. It consisted, he says, of aristocrats, 
half-breeds, a solid independent yeomanry, “looking 
askance at those above, yet not venturing to jostle them,” 


1 See Autobiography of Martin Van Buren, p. 431; published by the American 
Historical Association, Washington, 1920. 


[ 63 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


and ‘last and lowest,’ the abject and unprincipled class of 
overseers, ‘always cap in hand to the Dons who employed 
them, and furnishing materials for the exercise of their 
pride, insolence, and spirit of domination.’ 

Standing alone these few sentences of Jefferson need 
modification or at least enlargement. They might be cor- 
rected from his own Notes on Virginia. But let us turn 
to a page from the Journal of an English officer who vis- 
ited North America in 1764-1765, and spent a month in 
Virginia : — 

“This province (Virginia) was the first settled of any on the Conti- 
nent; it has always been a loyal one. The first settlers were many of 
them younger brothers of good families in England, who, for different 
motives, chose to quit home in search for better fortune. Their de- 
scendants, who possess the greatest land properties in the province, 
have intermixed, and have always had a much greater connection with, 
and dependence on, the mother-country than any other province, the 
nature of their situation being such, from the commodiousness and 
number of navigable rivers and creeks, that they may export to, and 
import from home, everything they raise or want, from within a few 
miles of their own houses, and cheaper than any neighbouring province 
could supply them. They have almost always lived in good harmony 
with their governors, and with one another; they each live 
at their own seats, and are seldom at Williamsburgh, but when the pub- 
lic business requires their attendance, or that their own private affairs 
call them there. Scarce any of the topping people have houses there 
of their own; but in the country they live on their estates handsomely 
and plentifully, raising all they require, and depending for nothing on 
the market... . 

. . . “Upon the whole, was I in the case to live in America, this 
province, in point of company and climate, would be my choice in 
preference to any I have yet seen; the country in general is more 
cleared of wood, the houses are larger, better, and more commodious 
than those to the southward, their breed of horses extremely good, and 
in particular those they run in their carriages, which are mostly from 
thoroughbred horses and country mares; they all drive six horses, and 
travel generally from eight to nine miles an hour, going frequently sixty 


[ 64 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


miles to dinner: you may conclude from this their roads are extremely 
good. They live in such good agreement that the ferries, which would 
retard in another country, rather accelerate their meeting here, for 
they assist one another, and all strangers, with their equipages, in so 
easy and kind a manner, as must deeply touch a person of any feeling, 
and convince them that in this country hospitality is everywhere 
practised. 

“Their provisions of every kind are good; their rivers supply them 
with a variety of fish, particularly crabs and oysters; their pastures 
afford them excellent beef and mutton, and their woods are stocked 
with venison, game, and hogs; poultry is as good as in South Carolina; 
and their Madeira wine excellent, almost in every house; punch and 
small beer, brewed from molasses, is also in use — but their cider far 
exceeds any cider I ever tasted at home. It is genuine and unadul- 
terated, and will keep good to the age of twelve years and more.” 


Compared with English town and country labourers the 
poor whites in Virginia were free and comfortable. But 
there was enough oppression to furnish complaints and 
enough luxury to furnish contrasts. George the Third 
and his ministers did all that was required to supply new 
grievances. Patrick Henry’s orations had warmed and 
heated the discontent until it boiled over, first against the 
Parsons of the Established Church, then against the 
Stamp Act, and later as we shall see against the peace 
lovers and loyalists who shrank from warlike measures. 
What then was the part played by Virginia and by Jef- 
ferson at this crisis of American history ? 

During 1773, when fresh commotions arose in New Eng- 
land, Jefferson had stepped forward as one of the origina- 
tors of the Committees of Correspondence. ‘The next 
event,” to quote his memoir, “which excited our sym- 
pathies for Massachusetts was the Boston Port Bill by 
which the port was to be shut up on the first of June 1774.” 
The news arrived while the Virginia Legislature was in 
session at Williamsburg. The lead in the House on these 


[65 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


subjects being no longer left to the old members, Patrick 
Henry, R. H. Lee, Jefferson, and others (“‘agreeing that we 
must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with 
Massachusetts’’) consulted on what measures could be 
adopted for “‘arousing our people from the lethargy into 
which they had fallen, as to passing events.’’ They de- 
cided that the appointment of a day of general fasting and 
prayer would be likely to serve this purpose. No such 
solemnity had been resorted to since their distress in the 
war of 755. “With the help, therefore, of Rushworth, 
whom we rummaged over for revolutionary precedents 
and forms, . . . we cooked up a resolution . . . for ap- 
pointing the 1st day of June, on which the port bill was to 
commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, 
to implore Heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, 
to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and 
to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to modera- 
tion and justice.”’ The group approached another mem- 
ber, Nicholas, ‘““whose grave and religious character was 
more in unison with the tone of our resolution,” and 
begged him to move it. He agreed. 

“The first of June was proposed; and it passed without opposition, 
The Governor dissolved us, as usual. We retired to the Apollo, as be- 
fore . . . and instructed the committee of correspondence to propose 
to the corresponding committees of the other colonies, to appoint depu- 
ties to meet in Congress at such place, annually, as should be conven- 
ient, to direct, from time to time, the measures required by the general 


interest: and we declared that an attack on any one colony, should be 
considered as an attack on the whole.” 


This was in May, 1774. They further recommended 
the several counties to elect deputies to meet at Williams- 
burg, August Ist, to consider the state of the colony, 
and to appoint delegates to a general Congress. 


[ 66 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


This also was acceded to; Philadelphia was appointed 
for the place, and the 5th of September for the time of 
meeting :— 

“We returned home, and . . . invited the clergy to meet assemblies of 
the people on the 1st of June, to perform the ceremonies of the day, and 
to address to them discourses suited to the occasion. The people met 
generally, with anxiety and alarm in their countenances, and the effect 
of the day, through the whole colony, was like a shock of electricity 
. . . They chose, universally, delegates for the convention. Being 
elected one for my own county, I prepared a draught of instructions to 
be given to the delegates whom we should send to the Congress. .. . 
In this I took the ground that, from the beginning, I had thought the 
only one orthodox or tenable, which was, that the relation between 
Great Britain and these colonies was exactly the same as that of Eng- 
land and Scotland, after the accession of James and until the union, 
and the same as her present relations with Hanover, having the same 
executive chief, but no other necessary political connection; and that 
our emigration from England to this country gave her no more rights 
over us, than the emigrations of the Danes and Saxons gave to the pres- 
ent authorities of the mother country, over England.” 


In this doctrine, adds Jefferson, he had hitherto never 
been able to get any one to agree with him except George 
Wythe. “Our other patriots, Randolph, the Lees, Nich- 
olas, Pendleton, stopped at the half-way house of John 
Dickinson, who admitted that England had a right to 
regulate our commerce, and to lay duties on it for the 
purposes of regulation, but not of raising revenue.” } 

Towards the end of July Jefferson started to attend the 
meeting at Williamsburg, but was taken ill on the road. 
He sent a copy of the Instructions he had drafted for the 
Virginia delegates to Peyton Randolph, Chairman of the 
Convention, who laid Jefferson’s paper on the table for 
perusal. It was thought too bold at that stage to embody 
in the Instructions, but was approved by many of the 


1 The above quotations are from Jefferson’s Memoir. 


[ 67 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


members, who had it printed at Williamsburg as a pam- 
phlet entitled “A Summary View of the Rights of British 
America, set forth in some Resolutions intended for the 
inspection of the present Delegates of the people of Vir- 
ginia, now in Convention, by a native and Member of the 
House of Burgesses.””! The pamphlet ran through several 
editions. It was reprinted in Philadelphia and afterwards 
(before the end of the year) in London. 

Edmund Randolph tells us that Jefferson’s draft in- 
structions (reprinted in the pamphlet) were read to a 
large Company at the home of Peyton Randolph. Most 
of them were applauded, but not all: — 


“From the celebrated letters of the Pennsylvanian Farmer [John 
Dickinson] we had been intrusted to bow to the external taxation of 
parliament, as resulting from our migration, and a necessary depen- 
dence on the mother country. But this composition of Mr. Jefferson 
shook this conceded principle, although it had been confirmed by a 
still more celebrated pamphlet of Daniel Dulaney of Maryland, and 
cited by Lord Chatham as a text book of American rights. The young 
ascended with Mr. Jefferson to the source of those rights; the old re- 
quired time for consideration before they could tread this lofty ground, 
which, if it had not been abandoned, at least had not been fully occu- 
pied throughout America. From what cause it happened that the reso- 
lutions were not printed by order of the Convention does not appear; 
but as they were not adopted, several of the author’s admirers sub- 
scribed for their publication. When the time of writing is remembered, 
a range of inquiry not then very frequent, and marching far beyond 
the politics of the day will surely be allowed them.” ? 


The feeling of Jefferson’s friends and supporters at this 
time appears in a Preface of the Editors, which runs : — 


“The following piece was intended to convey to the late meeting of 
delegates the sentiments of one of their body, whose personal attend- 


1 A copy of the Williamsburg edition, corrected and annotated by Jefferson, 
is in the Library of Congress. 
2 See Edmund Randolph’s Ms. History of Virginia, p. 25. 


[ 68 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


ance was prevented by an accidental illness. In it the sources of our 
present unhappy differences are traced with such faithful accuracy, 
and the opinions entertained by every free American expressed with 
such a manly firmness, that it must be pleasing to the present, and may 
be useful to the future ages. It will evince to the world the moderation 
of our late convention, who have only touched with tenderness many 
of the claims insisted on in this pamphlet, though every heart acknowl- 
edged their justice.” 

Their object no doubt in issuing the pamphlet was to 
rest the American case on firmer constitutional ground, 
from which the claim of the American colonies to be free 
states within the British Empire could be logically de- 
fended. At that time even George Washington — as ap- 
pears from the Resolutions of the meeting in Fairfax 
County, Virginia, over which he presided — still acknowl- 
edged the right of the British Parliament “directed with 
wisdom and moderation” to regulate American com- 
merce. 

Jefferson’s piece deserves notice, not only as his first 
publication, but also for the influence it exerted on the 
political mind of America, then halting between two 
opinions and groping, as it were, for a philosophical argu- 
ment in defence of an autonomy which would exclude 
interference from London. 

In the first paragraph the Virginian Deputies, on meet- 
ing “in general congress’’ the Deputies “‘from the other 
states of British America,” are instructed to propose ‘‘an 
humble and dutiful address” to King George, “‘to lay 
before him, as Chief Magistrate of the British Empire, the 
united complaints of his Majesty’s subjects in America.” 

The address is further “‘to represent to his Majesty that 
these his States have often individually made humble ap- 
plication to his imperial Throne, to obtain, through its 
intervention, some redress of their injured rights; to none 


[ 69 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


of which, was ever even an answer condescended.”’ They 
humbly hope that this joint address, “penned in the lan- 
guage of truth, and divested of those expressions of ser- 
vility which would persuade his Majesty that we are ask- 
ing favours, and not rights,” will obtain from his Majesty 
a more respectful acceptance. 

The King is reminded “‘that he is no more than the chief 
officer of the people, appointed by the laws and circum- 
scribed with definite powers, to assist in working the great 
machine of government, erected for their use, and con- 
sequently, subject to their superintendence.”’ 

Jefferson then proceeds to develop the historical theory 
on which Congress should base its claims in negotiating 
with Britain. His argument will be presented here, as 
nearly as space permits, in his own language : — 


Our Ancestors, before their emigration to America, were the free 
inhabitants of the British Dominions in Europe. They exercised the 
right given by nature to all men of departing from the country in which 
chance, not choice, had placed them, in quest of new habitations, and 
of there establishing new societies under such laws as would promote 
public happiness. In like manner their Saxon ancestors had left their 
native wilds and woods in Northern Europe to possess themselves of 
England, and had there established the system of laws which has so 
long been its glory and protection. America was conquered, and the 
settlements established, by the emigrants themselves at the expense of 
their own blood and fortunes. What they won they alone have a right 
to hold. In later times, after the Colonies had become firmly estab- 
lished and commercially valuable, Parliament was pleased to lend 
them assistance against the French and the Indians. The aids granted 
were doubtless valuable, but they give no title to the authority now 
arrogated by Parliament, and may be amply repaid by such exclusive 
privileges in trade as may advantage them without being too restrictive 
to ourselves. 

After effecting their settlements in the wilds of America the emi- 
grants adopted the laws under which they had lived in the Mother 
Country, and continued their union with her by submitting themselves 


[ 70 ] 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


to the same common sovereign, who thereby became a central link 
connecting the several parts of the Empire. Thus removed from op- 
pression they were not long permitted to hold undisturbed the rights 
they had acquired so dearly. The Stuart Kings, whose treasonable 
crimes against their people were afterwards punished parted out the 
new country and distributed it among royal favourites. 

Under the first Stuarts Virginia was prohibited from its natural 
right to enjoy free trade with all parts of the world; but in 1651 a sol- 
emn treaty, entered into by the British; Commonwealth and the Colony 
of Virginia, expressly stipulated that the Virginians should enjoy ‘free 
trade as the people of England do enjoy, to all places and with all na- 
tions, according to the laws of this Commonwealth.” On the restora- 
tion of King Charles II free commerce once more fell a victim to arbi- 
trary power; and in succeeding reigns the colonial trade was again 
laid under such restrictions as showed how little justice could be hoped 
from a British Parliament, if the States were to admit its uncontrolled 
authority. That bodies of men may act tyrannically is proved by the 
existing regulations of American commerce; for Parliament, besides 
imposing duties on American imports and exports, has prohibited our 
going to any markets north of Cape Finisterre either to buy or sell. 
All our tobacco, including the surplus which the British do not con- 
sume, must be sold to British merchants to be reshipped and disposed 
of in foreign markets at a much higher price than we receive. By one 
act of George the Second’s reign American subjects are forbidden to 
manufacture a hat out of American fur ; by another they are forbidden to 
manufacture machinery out of American iron. Experience thus con- 
firms the principle that the colonies ought to be exempt from the juris- 
diction of the British parliament. But the true ground for declaring 
these Acts void is that Parliament has no right to exercise authority 
over us. 


.To show that these exercises of usurped power had been 
much aggravated since George the Third mounted the 
throne, Jefferson recites the Stamp Duties and Tea Duties, 
“An Act for the better securing the dependency of His 
Majesty’s Dominions in America upon the Crown and 
Parliament of Great Britain,’ and worst of all the special 
Acts aimed against New York and Boston. The first of 


[71] 


Thomas Jefferson 


these was entitled: ‘“‘an Act for suspending the Legisla- 
ture of New York.”’ Surely a manifest absurdity : — 


One free and independent legislature, hereby takes upon itself to 
suspend the powers of another, free and independent as itself. . . . 
Not only the principles of common sense, but the common feelings of 
human nature must be surrendered up, before His Majesty’s subjects 
here, can be persuaded to believe that they hold their political existence 
at the will of a British Parliament. . . . Can any one reason be as- 
signed why one hundred and sixty thousand electors in the island of 
Great Britain, should give law to four millions in the States of America, 
every individual of whom, is equal to every individual of them in vir- 
tue, in understanding, and in bodily strength? Were this to be ad- 
mitted instead of being a free people, as we have hitherto supposed, 
and mean to continue ourselves, we should suddenly be found the 
slaves, not of one, but of one hundred and sixty thousand tyrants. 

By another Act to discontinue the shipping of Boston, passed in the 
last session of parliament, a large and populous town had been deprived 
of its trade and involved in utter ruin. On principles of justice that 
Act could not be defended. Only in Massachusetts were the protests 
of the people disregarded. The situation was extraordinary; the peo- 
ple were naturally exasperated. A number of them assembled in Bos- 
ton, threw the tea into the ocean, and dispersed without any further 
active violence. If in this they did wrong, they were amenable to the 
laws of the land. But they were now devoted to ruin by that unseen 
hand which governs the momentous affairs of this empire. On the 
partial representations of a few worthless ministerial dependants, who 
hoped by their treacheries to win the dignity of British knighthood, 
an ancient and wealthy town had been reduced from opulence to beg- 
gary. Men who spent their lives in extending British commerce, and 
had invested their savings in Boston, found themselves thrown on 
charity for subsistence. Not one in a hundred of the inhabitants had 
been concerned in the act complained of; yet all were involved in one 
indiscriminate ruin. 


With equal severity Jefferson condemned the recent 
Acts providing that Americans accused of certain of- 
fences might be transferred to Great Britain for trial, thus 
depriving them of a jury of their neighbours, the privilege 

[ 72 ] 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


granted to all Englishmen by Magna Charta, and remov- 
ing the accused from the place where alone full evidence 
could be obtained : — 


“These are the acts of power, assumed by a body of men foreign to 
our constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws; against which we 
do, on behalf of the inhabitants of British America, enter this, our 
solemn and determined protest. And we do earnestly entreat his Maj- 
esty, as yet the only mediatory power between the several states of 
the British empire, to recommend to his Parliament of Great Britain, 
the total revocation of these acts.” 


From the legislative oppressions of Parliament Jefferson 
proceeds still more boldly to consider the executive con- 
duct of the King and to “mark out his deviations from 
the line of duty”: — 


In Great Britain the King’s original power of refusing assent to 
Bills passed by both Houses of the Legislature had lapsed through dis- 
use. But the addition of new States to the Empire had led to a re- 
sumption of the royal veto for the legitimate purpose of preventing 
the passage of laws by one legislature which might injure another state 
of the Empire: — 

“Yet this will not excuse the wanton exercise of this power, which 
we have seen His Majesty practise on the laws of the American legis- 
latures. For the most trifling reasons, and, sometimes, for no conceiv- 
able reason at all, his Majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary 
tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of de- 
sire in those colonies, where it was, unhappily, introduced in their in- 
fant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, 
it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet 
our repeated attempts to effect this, by prohibitions, and by imposing 
duties which might amount to a prohibition, have been hitherto de- 
feated by His Majesty’s negative... 

“With equal inattention to the necessities of his people here, has 
His Majesty permitted our laws to lie neglected in England, for years, 


1 The passage about slavery may explain why Jefferson’s draft was not liked 
by all the Virginian delegates! 


eee 


Thomas Jefferson 


neither confirming them by his assent, nor annulling them by his nega- 
tive: so, that such of them as have no suspending clause, we hold on the 
most precarious of all tenures, His Majesty’s will. To render this griev- 
ance still more oppressive, the King has laid down such instructions for 
his governors that they can pass no law of any moment unless it have 
such suspending clause; so that, however immediate may be the call 
for legislative interposition, the law cannot be executed, till it has 
twice crossed the Atlantic, by which time the evil may have spent its 
whole force.” 


One of the King’s recent instructions had struck at the 
root of representative institutions in Virginia; for the 
Governor had been forbidden to assent to any law for the 
constitution of a county, unless the new county would 
consent to forego representation in the Assembly.? 

In the reign of Richard the Second — so Jefferson’s 
argument proceeds — Tresilian and other judges were 
impeached and executed as traitors for advising the king 
that he might dissolve Parliament at any time. Later 
kings indeed had exercised that power; but since the 
Glorious Revolution it had been abandoned.? How differ- 
ent was the practice of the king’s governors in America, 
where legislative bodies had been dissolved for asserting 
the rights of their constituents against foreign usurpa- 
tions. If they had corruptly sold those rights, as in Brit- 
ain, then their continuance in office would have become 
dangerous to the State. Such being the causes for which 
a representative body should and should not be dissolved, 
was it not strange that the British parliament had not been 
dissolved by the King, while the Colonial Assemblies had 
been repeatedly dissolved by their Governors? 

But the King, and his Governors, had carried this power 
beyond any limit known to the laws; for after dissolving 


1 Virginia had then no boundary to the westward. 
2 In an Ms. note Jefferson excepts the Dissolutions of 1698, 1700, and 1701, 


[ 74 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


one House of Representatives they had refused to call 
another, so that for long periods the lawful legislature had 
been non-existent. Human nature revolts against the 
supposition of a state unable to provide in emergencies 
against danger or ruin. When therefore the representative 
bodies, to whom power has been delegated, are dissolved, 
power reverts to the people, who may exercise it to an un- 
limited extent by assembling or appointing deputies, or in 
any way they may think fit; and should the American 
people under such circumstances take upon them to dis- 
continue their connection with the British Empire, “none 
will be so bold as to decide against the right or the efficacy 
of such avulsion.” 

Another recent grievance of Virginia is noted in the 
royal claim to grant unsettled lands in the Colonies, as 
though those lands belonged to the crown, whereas they 
belong by ‘“‘the nature and purpose of civil institutions”’ 
to the society in whose territory they lie. 

Lastly, to enforce the arbitrary measures here set out 
and complained of, the king had from time to time sent 
armed forces, not raised in America or by the authority 
of American laws. If he possessed such a right it might 
swallow up all the rights of the Colonies. “ But his Maj- 
esty has no right to land a single armed man on our shores, 
and those whom he sends here are liable to our laws made 
for the suppression and punishment of riots and unlawful 
assemblies; or are hostile bodies invading us in defiance 
of our laws.” Every state must judge for itself what 
should be the number of its armed forces, of whom they 
are to consist, and under what restrictions they are to 
be laid. 

The case for the Colonies against parliament and king 
is now concluded. Only the summing up remains : — 


[75] 


Thomas Jefferson 


“These are our grievances, which we have thus laid before his Maj- 
esty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free 
people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not 
as the gift of their chief magistrate. Let those flatter who fear — it is 
not an American art. To give praise where it is not due, . . . would 
ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They 
know, and will, therefore, say that kings are the servants, not the pro- 
prietors of the people. Open your breast, Sire, to liberal and expanded 
thought. Let not the name of George the Third be a blot on the page 
of history. You are surrounded by British counsellors, but remember 
that they are parties. . . . It behoves you, therefore, to think and 
to act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and 
wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them, requires not the aid 
of many counsellors. . . . No longer persevere in sacrificing the rights 
of one part of the empire, to the inordinate desires of another; but deal 
out to all equal and impartial right. . . . This is the important post 
in which fortune has placed you, holding the balance of a great, if a 
well poised empire. This, Sire, is the advice of your great American 
council, on the observance of which may perhaps depend your felicity 
and future fame, and the preservation of that harmony which alone 
can continue, both to Great Britain and America, the reciprocal advan- 
tages of their connection. It is neither our wish nor our interest to 
separate from her. We are willing, on our part, to sacrifice every thing 
which reason can ask, to the restoration of that tranquillity for which 
all must wish. On their part, let them be ready to establish union on a 
generous plan. Let them name their terms, but let them be just. Ac- 
cept of every commercial preference it is in our power to give, for such 
things as we can raise for their use, or they make for ours. But let 
them not think to exclude us from going to other markets, to dispose 
of those commodities which they cannot use, nor to supply those wants 
which they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed that our proper- 
ties, within our own territories, shall be taxed or regulated by any 
power on earth, but our own. The God who gave us life, gave us liberty 
at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin 
them. This, Sire, is our last, our determined resolution. And that 
you will be pleased to interpose . . . to procure redress of these our 
great grievances, to quiet the minds of your subjects in British America, 
against any apprehensions of future encroachment, to establish fra- 
ternal love and harmony through the whole empire, and that that may 


[ 76 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


continue to the latest ages of time, is the fervent prayer of all British 
America.” 

Thus did Thomas Jefferson lay the axe of political free- 
dom at the root of arbitrary power and imperial domina- 
tion. It is the essay of a full-blown philosophic radical, 
who strips loyalty and royalty of all mystic properties, 
and makes political authority depend for justification 
upon its utility to the governed and upon their consent. 

There is no divine right, no halo round the crown, to 
obstruct the young Virginian’s political vision. King 
George is a chief magistrate who derives his power from 
the people, and must exercise it for their benefit and in 
dependence upon their will. This trumpet note of warning 
and defiance to an obstinate and arbitrary monarch, a 
servile Ministry, and a most corrupt parliament, was the 
forerunner of Paine’s Common Sense and of the Declara- 
tion of Independence. Jefferson was now a marked man. 
His pamphlet, as we have seen, speedily found its way 
to London, where, says the author, in his Memoir: — 

“Tt was taken up by the Opposition, interpolated a little by Mr. 
Burke so as to make it answer opposition purposes, and in that form 
ran rapidly through several editions. This information I had from 
Parson Hurt, who happened at the time to be in London; .. . and I 
was informed afterwards by Peyton Randolph that it had procured me 
the honor of having my name inserted in a long list of proscriptions, 
enrolled in a bill of attainder, . . . but suppressed in embryo by the 
hasty step of events, which warned them to be a little cautious. Mon- 
tague, agent of the House of Burgesses in England, made extracts from 
the bill, copied their names, and sent them to Peyton Randolph. The 
names I think were about twenty, which he repeated to me, but I recol- 
lect those only of Hancock, the two Adamses, Peyton Randolph him- 
self, Patrick Henry and myself.” 

The Virginia Convention met on August 1, and 
adopted (wisely as Jefferson afterwards thought) 'a much 

1See Jefferson’s Memoir, Note C. 


a7 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


milder set of instructions for the Virginian Delegates 
(Peyton Randolph, R. H. Lee, George Washington, 
Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, and 
Edmund Pendleton), who shortly afterwards proceeded 
to Philadelphia. There on September 5 in the Car- 
penters Hall they met delegates from all the Colonies 
except Georgia, and constituted what is known as the 
first Continental Congress. The Delegates were desired 
on behalf of Virginia to express their true allegiance to 
His Majesty “our lawful and rightful sovereign,” and to 
declare that ‘“‘we are determined with our lives and for- 
tunes to support him in the legal exercise of all his just 
rights and prerogatives.” ‘They also approved of a con- 
stitutional connection with Great Britain, and desired “a 
return to that intercourse of affection and commercial 
connection that formerly united both countries.” But 
grievances must be removed and American rights restored. 
They had acquiesced in the Navigation Acts and other 
British restrictions of American commerce; but these were 
an ample recompense for British protection. They would 
not acquiesce in the claim of parliament and the Crown to 
interfere with their revenues, jurisdictions, and internal 
policy. ‘To obtain redress of these grievances, without 
which the people of America can neither be safe, free, nor 
happy,” they were willing to undergo the great incon- 
venience of stopping all imports from Britain after No- 
vember 1, 1774, and also to cease exporting any commodity 
whatsoever to Britain after August 10, 1775. 

An earlier adoption of the non-intercourse plan would 
have involved the colony in too heavy a loss on its tobacco 
crop; but otherwise the Virginia Delegates were in- 
structed to co-operate with the sister colonies in General 
Congress for the accomplishment of the common purpose. 


[78 ] 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


This first Congress, presided over by Peyton Randolph, 
adjourned in October after resolving to meet again in 
May. In the eyes of George the Third and his Ministers 
it was an illegal body. The great majority of its mem- 
bers agreed with the Instructions adopted by Virginia. 
Though they were resolved to resist British encroach- 
ments upon their rights and liberties, separation was as 
far from their thoughts as war from their wishes. In this 
very month of October, 1774, Washington said: “I am 
well satisfied that no such thing as independence is de- 
sired by any thinking man in all North America; on the 
contrary, that it is the ardent wish of the warmest advo- 
cates for liberty that peace and tranquillity on constitu- 
tional grounds will be restored, and the horrors of civil 
discord prevented.” Dr. Edward Channing, the learned 
American historian, thinks there were probably “‘not a 
dozen men in all the Colonies at that time who wished for 
independence,”’ and adds: “had there been [instead 
of General Gage] a strong, wise, and prudent man at the 
head of affairs at Boston, the rupture might have been 
postponed for many years.” 

The First Continental Congress adopted a mild declara- 
tion of rights; but it also passed an agreement to boycott 
British trade, and recommended all the Colonies to ap- 
point local committees to enforce the non-intercourse 
policy, by which it was hoped parliament and the king 
would be brought to their senses. In this hope they were 
disappointed; for the new parliament elected at the end 
of the year, though less venal and servile than its pre- 
decessor, was yet sufficiently under the control of the 
king and Lord North to persist in the insensate policy of 
coercion. But the First Congress, if it failed to change the 
king’s policy, achieved a striking success in organising a 


[79] 


Thomas Jefferson 


continental boycott. Its measures to prevent the impor- 
tation and consumption of British goods were carried out 
with surprising promptitude in all the colonies, and in 
none more completely than in Virginia. The merchants of 
Virginia indeed, to whom non-intercourse meant ruin, 
were of course by interest and inclination as much opposed 
to economic war as those of Philadelphia, New York, and 
New England. But the planters, even in the tidewater 
counties, supported almost unanimously a measure which 
promised to achieve once more the bloodless victory which 
had attended similar resistance to the Stamp Act eight 
years before. Their leaders, trained in affairs, conversant 
in politics and law, drew from the pages of Harrington, 
Sidney, and Locke, notions of self-government and con- 
stitutional right which would have startled their cavalier 
ancestors. The Committees of Virginia were so active,? 
vigilant, and intolerant towards recusants that those who 
hesitated between King and Congress soon had no alter- 
native but exile or submission. A few Virginian not- 
ables like John Randolph, brother of Peyton, were to 
choose the former course. But when war broke out, Vir- 
ginia, thanks to its planter statesmen, suffered less from 
disaffection to the American cause than any of the leading 
colonies. In all its counties the boycott was acclaimed 
with zeal and enforced with rigour. Committeemen rode 
about inspecting books and ledgers of merchants. The 
raising of prices was strictly forbidden. Tea had become 
so detestable a beverage that some enthusiasts brought 
their unconsumed stores to the Court House to be pub- 
licly burned, ‘in which reasonable request,’ wrote the 
Virginia Gazette, ‘they were instantly gratified.” Persons 
dealing with recalcitrant merchants were declared “‘Ene- 


1Cp. The Revolution in Virginia, by H. J. Eckenrode, Chapter IV. 
[ 80 | 


The Rights and Wrongs of America 


mies to American Liberty.’”? Condemned goods were sold 
at auction in aid of the Boston sufferers. The names of 
ship captains and others who violated the non-importa- 
tion agreement were published. A letter from Jefferson to 
Col. A. Carey of December 9, 1774, bears witness to the 
severity of the boycott. It asks Carey to communicate 
to his county committee the fact that fourteen pairs of 
sash windows, ordered from England before these strin- 
gent measures had been thought of, were about to arrive at 
one of their coast towns. As glass had been prohibited by 
the Continental Association, “which without the spirit of 
prophecy could not have been foretold when I ordered 
them, so I mean they shall be subject to its condemna- 
tion. To your committee therefore, if landed within their 
county, I submit the disposal of them.”’ 


[81] 


CHAPTER VI 
THE REPLIES TO LORD NORTH — WAR BEGINS — 1775 __ 


“Tis very true, my sov reign King, 

My skill may weel be doubted; 
But facts are chiels that winna ding 
An’ downa be disputed: 
Your royal nest, beneath your wing, 
Is e’en right reft an’ clouted, 
And now the third part of the string, 
An’ less, will gang about it 

Than did ae day.” 

— Burns’ Dream (1786). 


in 1775. In January, Albemarle county elected 
its Committee of Safety, fifteen members, with 
Jefferson at the head of the poll. He was also one of his 
county’s two representatives in the Second Virginia 
Convention, which met at Richmond on March 20. 
Richmond, less exposed than Williamsburg to the British 
navy, and soon to succeed it as the seat of government, was 
then only a village. For lack of a public hall the delegates 
met in the little wooden church of St. John’s, which had 
enough pews to accommodate what was really a meeting 
of the House of Burgesses acting alone without Governor 
or Council. 
Though the people of Massachusetts were preparing 
armed resistance to Gage, war had not yet begun; and in 
Virginia many people believed that the commercial boy- 


[ 82 | 


Te storm which had gathered so fast in 1774 broke 


The Replies to Lord North 


cott, now in effective operation, would before long induce 
a change in British policy. When the Convention met at 
Richmond, it soon appeared that opinion was very evenly 
divided between the Conservatives who, still hoping to 
avoid a rupture, were opposed to warlike measures, and 
the so-called “progressives” or “patriots,” who thought 
that military preparations ought to be undertaken at once. 
The Conservatives, mostly elderly men of substance, 
included a few Tories or Loyalists. But what distin- 
guished them from the more fiery patriots was their reluc- 
tance to abandon hope of peace. They were for the most 
part only a few months or a few weeks behind Patrick 
Henry, R. H. Lee, and Jefferson. It is difficult to blame 
them for refusing to despair of conciliation, seeing that 
American rights had at Westminster such champions as 
Chatham, Rockingham, Shelburne, and Burke, supported 
by the Whig party (weakened though it was by factions 
and secessions), by the Dissenters, and by the commercial 
classes of England. At their instance the Convention be- 
gan by declaring “that it is the most ardent wish of this 
colony (and they are persuaded of the whole continent of 
North America) to see a speedy return to those halycon 
days when we lived a free and happy people.”’ 
Thereupon Patrick Henry sprang to his feet, and pro- 
posed that a committee be appointed to raise a force for 
the protection of the country. His speech thrilled the as- 
sembly and resounded like a trumpet blast over the Con- 
tinent. Different accounts of it have been handed down. 
But we know that it was a frenzied appeal to the most 
easily roused of all human passions. ““We must fight” 
was the burden of every period, until at last he came to 
the peroration which every American school boy has by 


heart : — 
[ 83 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


“Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? 
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of 
chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what 
course others may take; but as for me give me liberty or give me 
death!” 

A clergyman, recalling his emotions long afterwards, 
said that the speech left him “sick with excitement.” 
The visitor standing on the spot, while the cicerone recites 
a version of Patrick Henry’s words, may reconstruct the 
scene — the tiny church, the high pews, the dim light, 
the small crowded congregation swayed by conflicting 
passions, cheering and countercheering, as they listened 
to this debate, but spellbound at last by the magic elo- 
quence of their countryman. 

Edmund Randolph, who was present, mentions that 
Jefferson “argued closely, profoundly and warmly on the 
same side.’’ But Patrick Henry’s ‘‘arming Resolutions,” 
supported by Lee, Jefferson, and Washington, the last 
named “prominent though silent,’’ were only carried by 
65 to 60 votes, a sufficient proof that the elected represent- 
atives of Virginia, divided between caution and courage, 
were not to be carried off their feet by a tempest of rhet- 
oric. In truth they might well halt between two opin- 
ions. New England was arming; but fighting had not 
begun in Massachusetts. Patrick Henry, it seems, would 
have gone further and broken openly with England by 
adopting a constitution and ousting the Governor. 
Neither the Convention nor the people were ready for such 
a step. A committee, which included Henry, Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, and Pendleton, was appointed. They pre- 
pared a plan for arming and disciplining the militia. The 
Convention after adopting it adjourned. Lord Dunmore, 
who still remained in the Governor’s palace at Williams- 
burg, though impotent to arrest the progress of revolu- 


[ 84 ] 


The Replies to Lord North 


tionary sentiment and organization, had intimated that 
he expected conciliatory propositions from England, and 
would shortly summon a meeting of the House of Bur- 
gesses to consider them. Such a meeting would clash with 
the Congress at Philadelphia. As Peyton Randolph, one 
of the Virginia delegates to Congress, was Speaker, and 
as his presence would probably be required at Williams- 
burg, the Richmond Convention appointed Jefferson in 
that event to serve in his stead on the Virginia delegation 
at Philadelphia. 

In the very next month war broke out in Massachu- 
setts. General Gage sent out a body of troops on the night 
of April 18 to seize war stores at Concord. At the 
village of Lexington they met with opposition, and the 
first blood was shed on the morning of April 19. On their 
way back next day the detachment was attacked by the 
local militia, or ““minute men,” as they were called. The 
British troops retreated with loss to the lines at Charles- 
town, and thereupon a siege of Boston was begun by 
the Colonists. The following day acting under Lord 
Dunmore’s orders a detachment of marines carried off 
fifteen barrels of gunpowder from the Powder Horn at 
Williamsburg and lodged them in a British schooner. 
This incident inflamed popular feeling throughout Vir- 
ginia, which blazed up a few days later when news 
came of the battle of Lexington. The “gentlemen volun- 
teers” of Albemarle county mustered at Charlottesville 
within sight of Monticello, and sent a communication 
to Colonel George Washington, offering to march on 
Williamsburg and compel the Governor to return the 
powder to the public magazine. Patrick Henry actually 
set out for Williamsburg at the head of the Hanover 
county volunteers, but was pacified by one of Dunmore’s 


[85 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


officers, who handed over £330 to replace the gunpowder 
abstracted.? 

On June 1 Dunmore convened the House of Burgesses 
to hear Lord North’s Conciliatory Propositions and to 
urge the reopening of the Courts. It was six weeks after 
the fight at Lexington, and General Gage was still block- 
aded in Boston by a large army of New Englanders. But 
many leading Virginians were unwilling to snap the tie with 
England,? and the whole revolutionary convention, includ- 
ing Patrick Henry, met on the day appointed in Williams- 
burg. They even went over and ratified their own pro- 
ceedings at the Convention; but they refused to reopen 
the Courts, though they re-enacted the schedule of fees. 

Lord North’s Conciliatory Propositions furnished im- 
portant matter for consideration, as the reply of Vir- 
ginia would be certain to carry great weight throughout 
the Colonies. A few months before, these belated pro- 
posals might conceivably have formed the basis of at 
least a temporary settlement. But since the subversion 
of the Massachusetts charter, and the treatment of Boston, 
the minimum demands of the American patriots had risen 
much higher than ever before. They were bent on a settle- 
ment, which would exclude the possibility of future en- 
croachments by Parliament or the Crown on Colonial 
self-government and self-taxation. In February, Parlia- 
ment had voted by 296 to 106 an address pledging itself 
to support the government in crushing American resis- 
tance. Lord Chatham’s conciliatory Bill (whose adop- 

1In August the Convention at Richmond decided that £112,10.0 would pay 
for the gunpowder, and ordered the residue to be returned to the Receiver Gen- 
eral of the Colony. ; 

2In his Notes on Virginia (1784) secon wrote: “It is well known that 


in July, 1775 a separation from Great Britain and establishment of republican 
government had never yet entered into any person’s mind.” 


[ 86 | 


The Replies to Lord North 


tion would almost certainly have brought about peace) 
had been rejected early in February in the Lords, 
and Burke’s later Resolutions (in March) had been de- 
feated in the Commons by 270 to 78. Lord North, however, 
much to the surprise and (at first) to the indignation of the 
king’s friends, had himself on February 20 introduced 
a conciliatory resolution exempting from taxation any 
colony which would of its own accord make such contri- 
bution to Imperial defence, and such fixed provision for 
its governor and judges, as met with the approval of 
Parliament. 

To this proposal, which reached the Colonial governors 
in May, it was now necessary for the Virginian burgesses 
to reply. Peyton Randolph, their Speaker, knowing be- 
forehand, as Jefferson tells us in his Memoir, the tenor of 
these propositions “‘was anxious that the answer of our 
assembly, likely to be the first, should harmonize with 
what he knew to be the sentiments and wishes of the 
body [z.e. the Congress at Philadelphia] he had recently 
left. He feared that Mr. Nicholas, whose mind was not 
yet up to the mark of the times, would undertake the an- 
swer, and therefore pressed me to prepare an answer. I 
did so, and with his aid carried it through the house with 
long and doubtful scruples from Mr. Nicholas and James 
Mercer, and a dash of cold water on it here and there, en- 
feebling it somewhat, but finally with unanimity or a vote 
approaching it.” 

On May 7, three weeks before the meeting of the bur- 
gesses, Jefferson had written a letter to his old friend Wil- 
liam Small, now in England, to whom at William and 
Mary College he had owed so much. He had then just 
heard of the affair at Lexington. “‘This accident,” he 
feared, “has cut off our last hope of reconciliation, and a 


[ 87 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


phrenzy of revenge seems to have seized all ranks of 
people.”’ Instead of intimidating it had provoked, and 
the measure of irritation had been filled up by proscrip- 
tion of individuals, as impotent as it was inflammatory: 
“When I saw Lord Chatham’s Bill,” he went on, “I en- 
tertained high hope that a reconciliation could have been 
brought about. The difference between his terms, and 
those offered by our Congress, might have been accom- 
modated, if entered on by both parties with a disposition 
to accommodate. But the dignity of Parliament, it seems, 
can brook no opposition to its power. Strange that a set 
of men, who have made sale of their virtue to the Min- 
ister, should yet talk of retaining dignity! But I am get- 
ting into politics, though I sat down only to ask your ac- 
ceptance of the wine, and express my constant wishes for 
your happiness.” 

This view of Lord Chatham’s Bill is developed in the 
‘Address to Lord Dunmore from the House of Represent- 
atives” drafted by Jefferson at Peyton Randolph’s 
request and adopted by the House of Burgesses on June 
12. The language of the Address is respectful and con- 
ciliatory, though the substance of it is firm enough. “His 
Majesty’s dutiful and loyal subjects, the Burgesses of 
Virginia,” wishing nothing so sincerely as the continuance 
of brotherly love with “our fellow subjects of Great Brit- 
ain’’ were pleased to hear of a “benevolent tender” 
towards “‘ending our unhappy disputes with the Mother 
Country.” But after minutely considering the Resolu- 
tion passed by Parliament, they declared with pain and 
disappointment that “it only changes the form of op- 
pression without lightening the burden.” The reasons 
for this conclusion were (in a brief and condensed form) 
as follows : — 


[ 88 | 


The Replies to Lord North 


1. The British Parliament has no right to intermeddle with the 
support of civil government in the Colonies. For us not for them has 
government been instituted here. 

2. To secure exemption from unjust taxation we must saddle our- 
selves with a perpetual tax adequate to the expectations and subject 
to the disposal of Parliament: whereas we have a right to give our 
money, as Parliament gives theirs, without coercion, according to our 
own judgment. 

3. In return for a grant of money Parliament does not offer to re- 
peal its Acts restraining Colonia! trade, altering colonial constitutions 
depriving us of trial by jury, and maintaining standing armies in 
America. 

4. At the very time of requiring grants of money they are preparing 
large armaments to invade us “which is a style of asking gifts not recon- 
cilable to our freedom.” 

5. On our agreeing to contribute towards the common defence 
they do not propose to allow us free trade with the world: whereas to 
us it appears just that those who bear equally the burden of govern- 
ment should participate equally of its benefits. It is not fair that 
Great Britain should retain the monopoly of Colonial trade while 
exacting a contribution from the Colonies to imperial defence. 

6. Virginia is now represented in General Congress with the other 
colonies, and we are bound in honour as well as interest to share their 
fate. We should hold ourselves base deserters of the Union were we 
to make terms apart from them. 


The address then referred to Lord Chatham’s plan of 
accommodation “which, though not entirely equal to the 
terms we had a right to ask, yet differed but in few points 
from what the General Congress had held out.’ Had 
Parliament been so disposed ‘‘Lord Chatham’s Bill, on 
the one part, and the terms of Congress on the other, 
would have formed a basis for negotiations, which a spirit 
of accommodation on both sides might, perhaps, have 
reconciled.”” It came recommended, too, from one who 
had shown the world that Great Britain, with her Colonies 
united firmly under a just and honest Government, 


[89 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


formed a power which might bid defiance to the most 
potent enemies. But Chatham was no longer in power 
and Parliament had rejected his Bill. Such were the 
sentiments of Virginia’s representatives. Final determi- 
nation they left “to the General Congress, now sitting, 
before whom we shall lay the papers your Lordship has 
communicated to us. For ourselves, we have exhausted 
every mode of application which our invention could 
suggest as proper and promising.” They concluded with 
a prayer for divine guidance and a fervent hope that 
through the wise endeavours of the Congress “we may 
again see reunited the blessings of liberty, prosperity, 
and harmony with Great Britain.” 

So ended the reply to Lord Dunmore. Feeling against 
the Governor ran high. One of the burgesses even pro- 
posed that he should be hanged. A force of riflemen, 
called “‘shirtmen”’ on account of their long hunting 
frocks, arrived in the capital. Dunmore took refuge with 
his family on the Fowey, a British ship which lay off York- 
town. On June 21 the Burgesses sent a protest to the 
Governor complaining of his absence, and adjourned. It 
was the last meeting of the Colonial Assembly, though 
one or two other attempts were made later on to con- 
vene it. 

Meanwhile, on June 11, Jefferson, having accom- 
plished this important task at home, left to join his fellow 
delegates 1 at Philadelphia, where the Second Continental 
Congress was now in session. His journey (through Mary- 
land) took ten days, though he drove in a phaeton with 


1A strong contingent; Washington, Patrick Henry, R. H. Lee, Pendleton, 
Harrison, and Bland. 

2In Maryland he noted that the true difference of exchange between the 
currencies of Maryland and Virginia was 100 to 125. The pistareen of Maryland 
was equivalent to 4d., the dollar to 7/6d., and the half jo to £3. 


[90 ] 








The Replies to Lord North 


two spare horses. From Philadelphia on June 26, he 
wrote to his brother-in-law, Francis Eppes, with news of 
Bunker Hill — “an action at the outlet of the town of 
Boston” — and the still more important intelligence, 
perhaps the most decisive event of the war: ‘‘Wash- 
ington set out from here on Friday last as Generalissimo of 
all the provincial troops in North America.” Congress 
had chosen the one man of military rank and experience 
whose character and talents were equal to the task. More 
than once but for his wisdom, patience, sympathy; and 
fortitude, the Cause must have failed. 

“For solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity and wis- 
dom of conclusion no nation or body of men can stand in 
preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia.” So 
Chatham had declared a few months before. When Jef- 
ferson joined this Assembly, justly famous in the annals of 
democracy and political liberty, he had turned thirty-two. 
Among the delegates only two, John Jay and Edward 
Rutledge, were his juniors. But his reputation as author of 
A Summary View had preceded him, and he brought 
with him his own answer just adopted by the Burgesses of 
Virginia to Lord North’s Conciliatory Propositions. Ac- 
cordingly he was at once called to the inner councils. 
“Though a silent member of Congress,” wrote John 
Adams, recording his impressions of the new arrival, “he 
was so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon commit- 
tees and in conversation — not even Samuel Adams was 
more so — that he soon seized upon my heart.” In other 
places the great New Englander!speaks of Jefferson’s “‘ mas- 
terly pen,” of his “happy talent for composition”’ and of 
“the peculiar felicity of expression”’ which men remarked 


1 John Adams was eloquent, honest, strong-minded and stout-hearted, though 
irascible, often petulant, and sometimes blinded by personal vanity and egotism. 


[91] 


Thomas Jefferson 


in his writings. His tact and courtesy conciliated the Con- 
servatives; the Whigs trusted him, and his silence was 
equally pleasing to those who wanted to speak and to those 
who wanted to get through the business of the day. 

So within five days of his arrival he was added with 
John Dickinson of Pennsylvania to the Committee for 
drawing up an Address on the Causes of Taking up Arms. 
Thereupon, writes Jefferson in his Memoir, “I prepared a 
draught of the declaration committed to us. It was too 
strong for Mr. Dickinson. He still retained the hope of 
reconciliation with the mother country, and was unwilling 
it should be lessened by offensive statements. He was so 
honest a man, and so able a one, that he was greatly in- 
dulged even by those who could not feel his scruples. We 
therefore requested him to take the paper, and put it into 
a form he could approve. He did so, preparing an entire 
new statement, and preserving of the former only the last 
four paragraphs and half of the preceding one. We ap- 
proved and reported it to Congress, who accepted it.” 

This address, we are told, was one of the most popular 
exhortations ever issued by Congress. It was read to the 
troops by their officers, to the populace amid thundering 
huzzas in every market place, and to religious bodies amid 
fervent prayers from nearly every pulpit in the Colonies. 
The concluding paragraphs, which Jefferson believed to 
have been taken from his rejected draft, certainly have 
something of the Jeffersonian ring. But even these para- 
graphs contain a pacific assurance: ‘‘Lest this declara- 
tion should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow 
subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them, that 
we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and 
so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely 
wish to see restored. We have not raised armies with am- 


[92] 


The Replies to Lord North 


bitious designs of separating from Great Britain and es- 
tablishing independent states.” 

After this Address, the still more important task of 
answering Lord North’s conciliatory propositions was en- 
trusted to a Committee of four, who were selected by bal- 
lot. The four members chosen were Franklin, who headed 
the list, then Jefferson, John Adams, and R. H. Lee. At 
the request of his colleagues Jefferson drafted the answer. 
With various emendations it was approved and adopted 
by Congress at the end of July. Though tenacious of 
principles and with a good conceit of his own judgment, 
Jefferson was throughout life modest in the best and truest 
sense. Instead of drawing attention in his Memoir to the 
fact that he was thus chosen to serve on a Committee with 
Franklin and Adams, and by them to draft a great state 
paper, he explains it: ‘‘the answer of the Virginian as- 
sembly on that subject having been approved, I was re- 
quested by the Committee to prepare this report, which 
will account for the similarity of feature in the two in- 
struments.” The family resemblance between the reply 
of Virginia and that of the Congress is indeed very close, 
so close that there is no need to retrace the argument. 
But the concluding paragraph, an appeal to the judgment 
of the civilized world, in which Jefferson’s original draft 
hardly differs from the published document, deserves 
citation : — | 

“When the world reflects how inadequate to justice are these vaunted 
terms; when it attends to the rapid and bold succession of injuries, 
which, during a course of eleven years have been aimed at the colonies: 
when it reviews the pacific and respectful expostulations, which, dur. 
ing that whole time, were the sole arms we opposed to them; when it 
observes that our complaints were either not heard at all, or were an- 


swered with new and accumulated injuries — when it recollects that 
the minister himself, on an early occasion, declared ‘that he would 


[93 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


never treat with America till he had brought her to his feet,’ that an 
avowed partisan of ministry has, more lately, denounced against us 
the dreadful sentence ‘delenda est Carthago’; and that this was done 
in presence of a British Senate, and being unreproved by them, must 
be taken to be their own sentiments, especially as the purpose has al- 
ready in part been carried into execution by the treatment of Boston 
and burning of Charlestown; when it considers the great armaments 
with which they have invaded us, and the circumstances of cruelty 
with which these have commenced and prosecuted hostilities; when 
these things, we say, are laid together and attentively considered, can 
the world be deceived into an opinion that we are unreasonable? Or 
can it hesitate to believe with us that nothing but our own exertions 
may defeat the ministerial sentence of death or abject submission.” 

The adoption of this reply to Lord North on July 31 
was the last act of the session. On August 1 the Second 
Continental Congress adjourned, and Jefferson returned 
to Monticello. 

The Colonies were now openly at war with Great Britain 
though their avowed aim was not yet complete separation 
and independence. Until the second petition of Congress 
in 1775, wrote John Jay years afterwards, ‘“‘I never did 
hear any American of any class express any wish for the 
independence of the Colonies.” In most of the colonies 
there were large numbers of loyalists who would have 
accepted Lord North’s terms; but the most prominent 
of them were slipping away to England or Canada or the 
West Indies. 

Among the loyalists or Tories of Virginia, John Ran- 
dolph, then Attorney General, brother of Peyton and a 
kinsman of Jefferson, was at this time preparing to remove 
to England. Two letters, one before, the other after his 
departure, will serve to elucidate Jefferson’s state of mind. 
The first, dated Monticello August 25, 1775, begins : — 

“T am sorry the situation of our country should render it not eligible 
to you to remain longer in it. I hope the returning wisdom of Great 


[ 94 ] 


The Replies to Lord North 


Britain will, ere long, put an end to this unnatural contest. . . . My 
first wish is a restoration of our just rights; my second, a return of the 
happy period, when, consistently with duty, I may withdraw myself 
totally from the public stage. . . . Perhaps, (for the latter adds con- 
siderably to the warmth of the former wish,) looking with fondness 
towards a reconciliation with Great Britain, I cannot help hoping you 
may be able to contribute towards expediting this good work. I think 
it must be evident to yourself, that the Ministry have been deceived 
by their officers on this side of the water, who (for what purpose I can- 
not tell) have constantly represented the American opposition as that 
of a small faction. . . . This you can inform them, of your own knowl- 
edge, is untrue. . . . I wish they were thoroughly and minutely ac- 
quainted with every circumstance, relative to America, as it exists in 
truth. I am persuaded this would go far towards disposing them to 
reconciliation. Even those in Parliament, who are called friends to 
America . . . pronounced in the last Parliament that the Congress of 
1774 did not mean to insist rigorously on the terms they held out, but 
kept something in reserve, to give up: and, in fact, that they would 
give up everything but the article of taxation. Now, the truth is 
far from this, as I can affirm. . .. The Congress stated the lowest 
terms they thought possible to be accepted, in order to convince the 
world they were not unreasonable. They gave up the monopoly and 
regulation of trade, and all acts of Parliament prior to 1764. ... But 
this was before blood was spilt. I cannot affirm, but have reason to 
think, these terms would not now be accepted. I wish no false sense 
of honour, no ignorance of our real intentions, no vain hope that par- 
tial concessions of right will be accepted, may induce the Ministry to 
trifle with accommodation, till it shall be out of their power ever to ac- 
commodate. If, indeed, Great Britain, disjoined from her colonies, 
be a match for the most potent nations of Europe, with the colonies 
thrown into their scale, they may go on securely. But if they are not 
assured of this, it would be certainly unwise, by trying the event of 
another campaign to risque our accepting a foreign aid, which, per- 
haps, may not be obtainable, but on condition of everlasting avulsion 
from Great Britain. This would be thought a hard condition, to those 
who still wish for reunion with their parent country. I am sincerely 
one of those, and would rather be in dependence on Great Britain prop- 
erly limited than on any nation upon the earth, or than on no nation. 
But I am one of those, too, who, rather than submit to the rights of 


[95] 


Thomas Jefferson 


legislating for us, assumed by the British Parliament . . . would lend 
my hand to sink the whole island in the ocean. 

If undeceiving the Minister, as to matters of fact, may change his 
disposition, it will, perhaps, be in your power, by assisting to do this, 
to render service to the whole Empire at the most critical time, cer- 
tainly, that it has ever seen.” 


The letter concludes with friendly assurances and with 
a hope that Randolph will continue the correspondence 
after his arrivalin England. That Jefferson still hoped for 
a peaceful settlement cannot be doubted; for at this time 
he was busy enlarging his house, extending his kitchen 
garden, and improving his roads. 

The new session of Congress, to which he had been re- 
elected, was convened for the first week in September; 
but the death of his second daughter, Jane (in infancy), 
prevented him from leaving for Philadelphia until the 
25th. This time he reached his destination in six days. 
An anxious time followed. 

Lord Dunmore, to punish a Colony whose allegiance he 
could not retain, had been trying to stir up a servile war. 
Jefferson’s letters home in October and November de- 
scribe the preparations in England and the raising of troops 
in Ireland and Germany for despatch to America. They 
tell of the success which at first attended the ill-starred in- 
vasion of Canada. In November Congress was so confi- 
dent that it despatched a committee “to bring the Cana- 
dians into our Union.” Having received no news from 
home for seven weeks Jefferson was tortured by suspense 
about the safety of his household. He wrote to his wife 
suggesting that they should remove themselves “‘from the 
alarms of Lord Dunmore,” who was harassing the plan- 
tations on the coast and might possibly send raiding par- 
ties up the rivers. 

[ 96 | 


The Replies to Lord North 


Jefferson’s second letter to John Randolph (now in 
England) acquainted him with the sudden death of his 
brother Peyton, the portly and popular Speaker of Con- 
gress. More than forty years afterwards Jefferson wrote 
a brief account of Peyton Randolph, concluding with the 
following acute sketch of his character : — 


“He was indeed a most excellent man; and none was ever more 
beloved and respected by his friends. Somewhat cold and coy towards 
strangers, but of the sweetest affability when ripened into acquaint- 
ance. Of Attic pleasantry in conversation, always good humored and 
conciliatory. With a sound and logical head, he was well read in law, 
and his opinions, when consulted, were highly regarded, presenting 
always a learned and sound view of the subject, but generally, too, a 
listlessness to go into its thorough development; for being heavy and 
inert in body, he was rather too indolent and careless for business, 
which occasioned him to get a smaller proportion of it at the bar than 
his abilities would-otherwise have commanded. ... Although not 
eloquent, his matter was so substantial that no man commanded more 
attention, which, joined with a sense of his great worth, gave him a 
weight in the House of Burgesses which few ever attained. He was 
liberal in his expenses but correct also, so as not to be involved in 
pecuniary embarrassments; and with a heart always open to the 
amiable sensibilities of our nature he did as many good acts as could 
have been done with his fortune, without injuriously impairing his 
means of continuing them.” 


Jefferson’s second letter to John Randolph tells him 
that “the success of our arms” in Canada “‘has corre- 
sponded with the justice of our cause.” He is expecting 
“every hour to be informed that Quebec had opened its 
arms to Colonel Arnold,’ and believes that ‘‘the dele- 
gates of Canada will join us in Congress and complete 
the American union.’ Lord Dunmore’s hostilities in 
Virginia and attempt to burn Hampton have “roused 
our countrymen into a perfect phrenzy.” He con- 
tinues : — | 


[97] 


Thomas Jefferson 


“Tt is an immense misfortune to the whole Empire to have a King 
of such a disposition at such a time. We are told, and everything 
proves it true, that he is the bitterest enemy we have. His Minister is 
able, and that satisfies me that ignorance or wickedness, somewhere 
controls him. . . . To undo his empire, he has but one truth more to 
learn; that, after colonies have drawn the sword, there is but one step 
more they can take. . . . Believe me, dear Sir, there is not in the 
British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great 
Britain than I do. But by the God that made me, I will cease to exist 
before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament 
propose; and in this I think I speak the sentiments of America. We 
want neither inducement nor power to declare and assert a separation. 
It is will, alone, which is wanting, and that is growing apace under the 
fostering hand of our King.” 

This was written at the end of November. Early in 
October the King had received a petition from London 
merchants protesting against the Government’s American 
policy. The petitioners represented the deadly wounds 
which war would inflict on commerce, and predicted that 
the blood and treasure wasted would effect a fatal sepa- 
ration between the different parts of the Empire. They 
appealed to history to show that force had never been em- 
ployed with success to change the opinions of freemen. 
But to no purpose. A counter petition was much more 
graciously received, “‘and the gentlemen of the Delega- 
tion had the Honour to kiss his Majesty’s hand.” A few 
days later, October 26, the King’s speech to Parliament 
declared that the Colonies with “‘traitorous leaders,” were 
engaged in a “desperate conspiracy to found an inde- 
pendent Empire” and that the rebellion would be put 
down at all costs by the forces of the Kingdom. 

In November the House of Commons rejected Burke’s 
motion for leave to bring in a Conciliatory Bill by two to 
one.1 Nevertheless, Congress still owned its allegiance to 


1 The largest minority yet obtained by the peace Whigs against the Govern- 


[ 98 | 


The Replies to Lord North 


the King and the British constitution in a reply, Decem- 
ber 6, 1775, to a royal proclamation declaring the Colonies 
in a state of rebellion. In mid-December Jefferson with 
Franklin and three others drafted a plan for an executive 
committee of Congress, which was to sit during the recess 
for the purpose of assisting the army and the commanders 
with advice, supplies, recruits, stores, etc. When Con- 
gress decided after all not to adjourn, Jefferson took leave 
of absence. He returned home on December 28, 1775, 
and remained at Monticello for the next four months. 


ment. Burke’s Bill was for “composing the present troubles in America” by 
exempting the Colonies from taxation by Parliament. 


[99 | 


CE ACAR SV Le 


THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 


MANUS HAEC INIMICA TYRANNIS ENSE PETIT PLACI- 
DAM SUB LIBERTATE QUIETEM. 


“This hand, an enemy to tyrants, seeks with the sword peace and con- 
tentment under a free government.” 


Inscribed by Algernon Sydney in the album of the University of Copen- 
hagen, and by the State of Massachusetts in gold letters on the State House 
at Boston. 

uy did the beginning of the year 1776 find the 

British parliament against all reason and inter- 

est bent on enforcing the Royal policy, while 

Congress, resolute to resist encroachments on Colonial 

constitutions and to secure fiscal autonomy, was still reluc- 
tant to separate from Britain and the British Empire? 

The theory that nations love war, man being a comba- 
tive and pugnacious animal, is probably derived from the 
observed fact that almost every war, however foolish and 
unnecessary or unjust, gains popular support as soon as 
the first gun has been fired. “‘My country right or wrong” 
expresses the view of the average man after war has been 
declared. Wars are not made by nations or parliaments 
but by kings or ministers. They are always desired by 
powerful interests, and wherever there is even the pre- 
tence of representative government the press is employed 
to heat up passion and spread false reports. In 1775 news- 
paper accounts of the resistance of Massachusetts yeomen 
touched the military pride of a nation, arrogant after its 

[ 100 | 


The Declaration of Independence 


victories over the French, and therefore all the more 
sensitive. Many Whigs who had disapproved of the Stamp 
Act and the Tea duties now said that government must 
be supported, that the British Empire must at any cost 
be preserved, and that, whoever was right in the be- 
ginning, American insolence now deserved chastisement. 

Orators like Chatham and Burke tried to rouse the 
conscience of the nation, comparing fairly enough the tea 
duty with shipmoney, and the American patriots with 
Hampden and Pym. But they found unusual apathy, 
not only in. Parliament, but among the people. Many of 
the Nonconformists indeed, led by Priestley and Price, 
espoused the cause of liberty with fervour. On the other 
hand the Bishops and clergy of the Established Church 
were almost unanimous for the war; and some of the 
Methodists, inspired by Wesley, proclaimed doctrines not 
far removed from passive obedience to Royal authority. 

The war itself, once preparations began, supplied the 
usual incentive to an active minority of interested patriots, 
whose noisy protestations of loyalty to King and country 
contrasted with a more than ordinary reluctance on the 
part of the common people to serve with the forces. To- 
wards the end even of Chatham’s glorious war against the 
traditional enemy across the channel several serious riots 
had attended the calling out of the militia. But an over- 
seas campaign against their own kith and kin was un- 
popular from the first. “The recruiting service,” wrote a 
contemporary chronicler, in all probability Edmund 
Burke,! ‘““which may be considered as a kind of political 
barometer with respect to the sentiments of the lowest 
orders,” went on “‘very heavily both in England and Ire- 

1 There is little doubt that he was responsible for the American paragraphs 
in the Annual Register of 1776, pp. 38, 39. 

Peon! 


Thomas Jefferson 


land, though no encouragement was wanting, nor means 
left untried” to procure extraordinary levies for service 
by land and sea. 

During one month of 1776 eight hundred men were 
carried off in London alone by press gangs, and large num- 
bers of prisoners in English and Irish gaols were pardoned 
on engaging to fight against the American rebels. When 
these odious and desperate devices proved insufficient to 
provide a British army of the size required, the govern- 
ment sought foreign aid. First they tried to induce the 
Dutch to allow a Scotch brigade in their service to be em- 
ployed in America. But the States General, remember- 
ing at what price Holland had purchased republican 
freedom, rejected the proposal. Then they negoti- 
ated at the Court of St. Petersburg for 20,000 Russians, 
but without success. All over the continent jealousy of 
British power, or an awakening zeal for liberty, favoured 
the American cause. “‘Even Voltaire and Rousseau,” 
wrote someone, ‘“‘who never agreed in anything else, are 
said to hold the same opinion on that subject.”’ That the 
Americans were fighting in freedom’s cause was nowhere 
asserted with more vehemence than in England by Chat- 
ham, Fox, and the Duke of Richmond. They and their 
followers openly professed the opinion that Englishmen 
would be enslaved if the Americans were defeated. 

Baffled in Russia and Holland, George the Third and 
Lord North found what they wanted in Germany. Hano- 
verian troops were sent to replace the English garrisons in 
Gibraltar and Minorca, and large bodies of mercenaries 
were bought from the petty princes of Hesse and Bruns- 
wick to be shipped to America. By this means there was 
collected in the spring of 1776 an army which, skilfully led, 
would almost certainly have vanquished Washington’s raw 

[ 102 | 


The Declaration of Independence 


levies. The supply of this expedition with naval and mili- 
tary stores of all descriptions at so prodigious a distance 
from the base gave employment and emolument to multi- 
tudes of manufacturers, labourers, and traders. It engaged 
a vast quantity of idle shipping in the transport service 
and ‘‘caused such a bustle of business and circulation of 
cash”’ as stifled the complaints of towns like Liverpool, 
which had been suffering from the loss of the slave trade. 
The contractors were already reaping a golden harvest, 
and the prospect of increasing profits was quite sufficient 
to excite in this class of unwarlike citizens an eager appe- 
tite and rage for a long fight to a finish. 

Even before the great expedition was despatched, a vast 
expenditure, yielding much profit to country gentlemen 
and favoured contractors, with many pickings doubtless 
for the king’s friends in parliament, had been incurred 
for the supply of the army beleaguered in Boston. Pro- 
digious supplies of hay, oats, and beans were bought to 
furnish a single regiment of light cavalry then quartered 
in Boston. Lest alcoholic courage should fail, ten thou- 
sand butts of strong beer were ordered from two right loyal 
brewers. To a modern War Office the extravagance and 
waste of 1776 would seem a bagatelle. But in those days 
the expenditure was colossal, and however little the British 
soldier gained, “‘the contracts were very lucrative, the 
connections of those who had interest to obtain them ex- 
tensive, and the number of persons who found employ- 
ment or benefit by the different services immense.” No 
wonder then that ‘“‘such a concurrence of circumstances 
found a numerous and zealous party in support of govern- 


1 As ‘the Guinea ships’ hitherto employed in the negro slave trade arrived 
in Liverpool they were laid up. In August, 1775, 3000 unemployed seamen 
rioted in Liverpool. They were soon afterwards absorbed in the King’s 
Service. 


[ 103 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


ment; and that they should earnestly wish for the con- 
tinuance of a war by which they profited so much.” ! 

In the colonies there was no such stimulus to patriotism. 
The revenues from taxes were altogether inadequate for 
war. The Colonial Governments had little credit and the 
Colonists little ready money. Many of the rich people 
were loyalists. The merchants, largely Scotch, were for 
peace and submission. Corruption there was, but it did 
not enrich. It only helped to demoralise soldiers already 
homesick and dismayed by the bad news from Canada. 
Discontent and disease were thinning Washington’s 
forces when the British armada was ready to sail in the 
spring of 1776. But the people and their representatives 
in Congress seem to have been for the most part confident 
of success. Their feelings had been exasperated during 
the winter by the burning of Norfolk, the chief port of 
Virginia, and of Falmouth on the coast of Maine. The 
bombardment and burning of Norfolk on New Year’s Day, 
1776, was a senseless outrage which made the royal cause 
hopeless in Virginia. Five or six thousand people, who 
had mostly been opposed to a rupture with the mother 
country for business reasons, were rendered homeless, and 
property to the value of £300,000 was destroyed. 

These acts and methods of barbarism prepared the soil 
for the seed of independence, which was sown broadcast 
by Tom Paine’s Common Sense, one of the most powerful 
and influential pamphlets ever published in the English 
language. It appeared on January 10, 1776. Its author, 
who was at once recognised as a master controversialist 
on the Republican side, had left England two years before 
to seek a livelihood in Philadelphia. Common Sense ran 
like wildfire through the Colonies. It shattered the King’s 


1See the Annual Register for 1776. 
[ 104 | 


ee os | 
ee os u \\ 

\ 

N 








The Declaration of Independence 


cause by setting forth in simple language the virtues of 
democracy, the utility of independence, and the absurdity 
of submitting to the arbitrary rule of an hereditary tyrant. 
To the conservative and slow-moving mind of Washing- 
ton its doctrine seemed ‘“‘sound” and its reasoning ‘“un- 
answerable.” Within three months 120,000 copies had 
passed into circulation, and the lingering doubts of many 
plain peaceable folk reluctant to break with Britain were 
dispelled. 

It need not be supposed that Jefferson spent the first 
four months of 1776 in political idleness, any more than 
John Adams, who took a shorter vacation about the same 
time. We may be sure that he was working with his 
friends for the final step. We know that he was Chair- 
man of the Committee of Safety in Albemarle County. 
We know from his account books that he was organizing 
a supply of powder for the militiamen of Virginia and col- 
lecting money for the Bostonians. The death of his 
mother at the end of March might have delayed his return 
to Philadelphia. But he waited several weeks longer; 
for he did not leave Monticello till May 7, or take his 
seat again in Congress at Philadelphia until May 13. 
The reason for this delay may readily be guessed. Before 
starting he wanted to be sure that Virginia would again 
set the pattern. Doubtless when he left Monticello he had 
in his pocket a draft of the resolution which was to be 
passed unanimously by the Virginia Convention a few 
days later. For while New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, and Maryland (the middle states) held back, the 
Virginia Convention on May 15 instructed its delegates 
in Congress to take the decisive step : — 


“ Resolved, unanimously, That the delegates appointed to represent 
this Colony in General Congress, be instructed to propose to that 


[ 105 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent 
States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown 
or Parliament of Great Britain; and that they give the assent of this 
Colony to such a declaration, and to whatever measure may be thought 
proper and necessary by the Congress for forming foreign alliances, 
and a confederation of the Colonies, at such time, and in the manner, 
as to them shall seem best: Provided that the power of forming gov- 
ernment for, and the regulations of the internal concerns of each Colony, 
be left to the respective Colonial legislatures.” 


Again Virginia was to take the lead. How much of 
quiet counsel and inspiration had been given by Jefferson 
before he set out can only be surmised. All we know is 
that within a few days of his arrival Congress committed 
to him the glorious task with which his name and fame 
will forever be linked. Only a sentence about all this 
appears in his Autobiography: “On the 15th of May, 
1776, the Convention of Virginia instructed their dele- 
gates in Congress to propose to that body to declare the 
colonies independent of Great Britain, and appointed a 
committee to prepare a declaration of rights and a plan 
of government.”’ This ‘plan of government’ was to be the 
first constitution framed for Virginia as a state indepen- 
dent of Britain, if not the first written constitution of the 
New World. 

On May 16, three days after taking his seat in Con- 
gress, Jefferson wrote a letter to his friend Thomas Nel- 
son (Junior), who afterwards in 1781 succeeded him for a 
short time as Governor of Virginia. It shows us that Jef- 
ferson was as anxious about a Constitution for Virginia as 
about American independence. He asks Nelson, who was 
a member of the Virginia Assembly, to keep him supplied 
with “conventional intelligence’ and doubts whether a 
new constitution should be hastily framed without pre- 
vious recourse to the popular will. ‘Should our Conven- 


[ 106 | 


The Declaration of Independence 


tion propose to establish now a form of government, per- 
haps it might be agreeable to recall for a short time the 
delegates. It is a work of the most interesting nature and 
such as every individual would wish to have his voice in. 
In truth it is the whole object of the present controversy ; 
for should .a bad government be instituted for us [Vir- 
ginians] in future, it had been as well to have accepted at 
first the bad one offered to us from beyond the water with- 
out the risk and expense of contest.”’ 

To Jefferson the main purpose of separation was not 
Independence but the democratic reforms which might 
through independence be achieved. To secure a good 
constitution for his own State of Virginia was his prime 
object. It was for Washington and his staff to win the 
war. Jefferson’s tactics already are political. He knows 
what sort of a Constitution he wants for his native State, 
and fears it may be lost in his absence; so he hints that 
the Virginia Delegates should be recalled from Congress 
if the Convention decides to frame a new mode of govern- 
ment, and by way of precedent mentions that other col- 
onies similarly engaged have recalled their delegates from 
Philadelphia, leaving only one or two to vote for their 
colony and to keep Congress informed on its interests and 
affairs. “I am at present,” he adds, “in our old lodgings 
tho’ I think, as the excessive heats of the city are coming 
on fast, to endeavour to get lodgings in the skirts of the 
town where I may have the benefit of a freely circulating 
air. ... 1am here in the same uneasy anxious state in 
which I was last fall without Mrs. Jefferson who could not 
come with me. I wish much to see you here, yet hope you 
will contrive to bring on as early as you can in convention 
the great questions of the session. I suppose they will tell 
us what to say on the subject of independence, but hope 


[ 107 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


respect will be expressed to the right of opinion in other 
colonies who may happen to differ from them. When at 
home I took great pains to enquire into the sentiments of 
the people on that head; in the upper counties I think I 
may safely say nine out of ten are for it.” 

In this same letter he mentions the disagreeable news of 
a second defeat at Quebec, and informs Nelson that Con- 
gress has ordered a new battalion of riflemen to be raised 
in Virginia. 

Jefferson was soon busy at Philadelphia. The day after 
he took his seat Canadian and Indian affairs were referred 
to a Committee of three, Livingstone, Jefferson, and John 
Adams. Their report, in Jefferson’s handwriting, con- 
sists of a series of brief resolutions, mainly for the purpose 
of assisting the operations in Canada. The first two direct 
the Commissioners for Indian Affairs in the Northern 
Department to procure the aid of Indians to undertake 
the reduction of Fort Niagara, promising a reward for every 
prisoner brought to headquarters, and similar induce- 
ments to Indians who would join in an attack on Detroit. 

But Jefferson could not forget that a new Virginian 
constitution was now in the making. ‘Mr. Jefferson who 
was in Congress,” writes Edmund Randolph, “urged a 
youthful friend! in the Convention to oppose a perma- 
nent constitution until the people should elect deputies for 
the official purpose. He denied the power of the body 
elected (as he conceived them to be the agents for the 
management of the war) to exceed some temporary regi- 
men.” On hearing at the end of May that the Conven- 
tion considered itself at liberty to make a Constitution 
without special mandate from the electors Jefferson set 
to work and drafted “‘a Bill for new-modelling the form of 


1 7.e. Randolph himself. 
[ 108 | 


The Declaration of Independence 


Government and for establishing the fundamental prin- 
ciples thereof in future.’’ But to insure his democratic 
principle Jefferson’s draft concludes “‘It is proposed 
that the above bill, after correction by the Convention, 
shall be referred by them to the people to be assembled 
in their respective counties: and that the suffrages of two 
thirds of the counties shall be requisite to establish it.” 
This “New Model,’ Jefferson’s first essay in an art older 
than Aristotle, at which so many political idealists have 
tried their hands, was finished in June. It was conveyed 
by his fellow delegate, George Wythe, from Philadelphia to 
Williamsburg, and by him handed to Pendleton, who pre- 
sided over the Convention. On July 27 Wythe wrote 
to tell Jefferson that his plan was too late. Another had 
already been committed to the whole house. ‘‘To those 
who had the chiéf hand in forming it the one you put into 
my hands was shown. Two or three parts of this were, 
with little alteration, inserted’; but members were too 
tired and too impatient to go over the work again. 

Nearly fifty years afterwards, Jefferson gave an account 
of this incident to Judge Woodward, who was puzzled 
by the similarity between the preamble to the Virginia 
Constitution and some sentences in the Declaration 
of Independence : — 


“The fact is unquestionable, that the Bill of Rights and the Con- 
stitution of Virginia were drawn originally by George Mason, one of 
our really great men, and of the first order of greatness. The history 
of the preamble to the latter is this: I was then at Philadelphia with 
Congress, and knowing that the Convention of Virginia was engaged 
in forming a plan of government, I turned my mind to the same subject, 
and drew a sketch or outline of a Constitution, with a preamble, which 
I sent to Mr. Pendleton, president of the Convention, on the mere pos- 
sibility that it might suggest something worth incorporation into that 
before the Convention. He informed me afterwards by letter, that he 


[ 109 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


received it on the day on which the Committee of the Whole had re- 
ported to the House the plan they had agreed to; that that had been so 
long in hand, so disputed inch by inch, and the subject of so much alter- 
cation and debate, that they were worried with the contentions it had 
produced, and could not, from mere lassitude, have been induced to 
open the instrument again; but that, being pleased with the preamble 
to mine, they adopted it in the House by way of amendment to the 
report of the Committee, and thus my preamble became tacked to the 
work of George Mason. The Constitution, with the preamble, was 
passed on the 29th of June, and the Committee of Congress had only 
the day before reported to that body the draft of the Declaration of 
Independence. The fact is, that the preamble was prior in composition 
to the Declaration; and both having the same object, of justifying 
our separation from Great Britain, they used necessarily the same 
materials of justification, and hence their similitude.”’ 


Jefferson’s main objections to the Constitution adopted 
were that the franchise was too narrow and that the tide- 
water counties were over represented. These conserva- 
tive features were inherited from the Colonial Constitu- 
tion, and were carried by the exertions of the planters, 
that is to say, the old Virginian aristocracy. When it came 
to the vote for Governor the Conservatives put up Thomas 
Nelson (senior), who had been President of the Council 
under the Royal régime. The radicals nominated Patrick 
Henry and carried that popular orator and agitator by 
60 votes to 45. 

This was the end of Henry’s career as a revolutionary. 
He had no capacity for business and not much for admin- 
istration. As governor he proved a mediocrity ; and in the 
following autumn the leadership of democracy in Virginia 
passed to Jefferson. The contrast between the two men 
is obvious. It has been drawn, with some false touches 
and exaggerated antitheses, by Dr. H. J. Eckenrode,! who 
sees in “the astute and pushing Jefferson’ a Rousseau and 


1In his book on The Revolution in Virginia. 
fro | 


The Declaration of Independence 


a Robespierre rolled into one, while Henry was being 
“sobered by time and responsibility into a conservative, 
almost a Bourbon.’ Let us consider the contrast as pre- 
sented by Dr. Eckenrode : — 


“The rival democratic leaders were not only unlike in temperament, 
but in outlook. Patrick Henry was essentially an agitator and one of 
the ablest that ever lived, the first great representative of the American 
democracy and still its most splendid and magnetic personality. Since 
his career was confined to Virginia save for three brief terms in the 
Continental Congress, Henry is much less generally known than Jeffer- 
son, who was greatly inferior to him in most of the qualities of leader- 
ship. Nevertheless, Jefferson, though gifted with nothing of Henry’s 
eloquence and little of his charm and power, succeeded in displacing 
him as the head of his party in Virginia and in occupying the position 
which should have been his by historical development, that of founder 
of the national Democratic-Republican Party and President of the 
United States. Jefferson, in all probability, would have eventually 
replaced Henry even if the latter had remained in the assembly instead 
of retiring into the governorship; for the orator was a political radical 
rather than a social reformer and much of a conservative at bottom. 
He was too acute to become a Rousseauan doctrinaire like his rival, 
mistrusting human nature because he knew it so well. More than that, 
deep down in him he was a localist; he loved the old ways, the ancient 
landmarks, and had no wish to live in an un-Virginian Virginia given 
over to the strange gods of liberal philosophy. The Revolution for 
him had ended with the establishment of a commonwealth under a 
constitution of equal political rights; he wanted no further egalitarian 
advances.! In some way, too, hard to explain, the man had changed 
since his disappointment in military command. Up to that time he 
had been a Boanerges; after his return to civil life he settled down 
from fiery action into the humdrum round of office routine for which 
he was so unsuited; his ambition narrowed, his imagination failed. 
Few psychological studies are more interesting than the transforma- 
tion of the radical, prepared in 1775 for any bold advance upon the 
future, into the obstructionist fighting his last great fight against the 
adoption of the Federal Constitution and magnificently losing. 


1Tf the rights were ‘equal,’ how could they be made more ‘egalitarian’? 
see T° | 


Thomas Jefferson 


For Jefferson, on the other hand, the Revolution only began with 
the Declaration of Independence. That was necessary in order that 
other things might follow — that wrongs might be redressed, inequali- 
ties leveled, and the State brought to the Utopian perfection all gen- 
erous thinkers demanded; freedom from England was the only 
condition of political and social development. For this reason, Jeffer- 
son, with his definite reforms, must have supplanted Henry, who had 
no programme at all to offer, especially in an age of dreams when proph- 
ets often prevailed over men of action. As for the reformer himself, 
he was a curious mixture of prophet and practical politician, a sort of 
common-sense Robespierre, devoid of Robespierre’s fanaticism and 
essential madness; what he could do to advance the rights of man he 
did, and for the rest — the more he could not do — was satisfied to 
leave to another age. That he was sincere need not be questioned; 
his enthusiasm began in youth and continued through life. Democracy 
was a religion to Jefferson, and, with all his tortuous politician’s soul, 
he held fast to the faith, even amidst the disillusionment of the French 
Revolution; it was to him the miracle that makes dry bones men, the 
power destined in time to heal the sorrows of the world.” 


Those who are familiar with Jefferson’s character and 
career will be surprised that a Virginian writer should have 
accumulated so many disparagements and misjudgments 
in two unlucky paragraphs. The real Jefferson was so 
retiring, so unwilling to stand in the political limelight; 
pomp and ceremony were so distasteful to him, that ill- 
natured critics have often accused him of carrying to an 
excess and affectation his dislike for personal ostenta- 
tion and self-advertisement. Was there ever a democratic 
leader from Cleon to Lloyd George who blew so few blasts 
on his own trumpet as Jefferson? ‘Astute’ if you like; 
but “pushing’ or ‘pushful’ is the most unlucky epithet that 
a critic could select from the vocabulary of abuse. 

But why go on to make Jefferson’s career incompre- 
hensible by pointing out that, though his influence and 
power far surpassed Henry’s both in Virginia and America, 

as, | 


The Declaration of Independence 


he had ‘little’ of his rival’s ‘charm and power’? It is 
quite true that Henry was a wonderful orator, whereas 
Jefferson was no orator at all. But we know from a cloud 
of contemporary witnesses of Jefferson’s personal mag- 
netism — that he was an ornament in every society; that 
he was distinguished by courtly manners and brilliant 
conversation; that he inspired a host of political friends 
and disciples with unbounded zeal and devotion. His 
political enemies hated him for political reasons. If he 
was traduced and vilified, it was by those whose policies 
he overturned, or whose privileges he abolished. The devo- 
tion of his family and friends, the testimony of travellers 
who enjoyed his hospitality, of political opponents who 
succumbed to the enchantment of his presence, combine 
to reject the prodigious paradox that Jefferson was so 
much greater a leader than Henry ‘though greatly in- 
ferior to him in most of the qualities of leadership,’ and so 
much more successful in the arts of persuading his fellow 
countrymen to adopt his opinions than one who, besides 
possessing the eloquence which he lacked, was also far 
more powerful and far more charming. Nor is it necessary 
to believe that he combined such incredible contradic- 
tions of character that he could be a doctrinaire and yet 
not a doctrinaire, a faithful democrat and yet a tortuous 
politician. The truth is that in all the qualities except 
eloquence, which fit a man to guide a party, and direct 
national affairs, Jefferson was Henry’s superior — in in- 
dustry, learning, statecraft, in scientific attainment and 
business ability, in character, consistency, fortitude, tact, 
refinement, prudence, foresight, and judgment. 

There is no need to make a mystery of the fact that the 
Sage of Monticello wielded a stronger influence over men, 
trod the political stage with a firmer foot, and left a far 


[113] 


Thomas Jefferson 


deeper and more enduring imprint on laws, institutions, 
and society than the revolutionary orator. Again, 
Jefferson was not in any sense a disciple of Rousseau; 
and if the term political, or philosophic radical may be 
allowed to retain its proper meaning, it is pre-eminently 
applicable to Jefferson and singularly inapplicable to 
Henry. 

Jefferson’s ‘New Model’ or ‘Proposed Constitu- 
tion for Virginia’ begins by deposing King George the 
Third : — 


“Whereas George Guelf, king of Great Britain and Ireland and 
Elector of Hanover, heretofore entrusted with the exercise of the kingly 
office in this government hath endeavoured to pervert the same into 
a detestable and insupportable tyranny; by putting his negative on 
laws the most wholesome and necessary for ye public good .. . } by 
answering our repeated petitions for redress with a repetition of inju- 
ries; and finally by abandoning the helm of government and declaring 
us out of his allegiance and protection; by which several acts of mis- 
rule the said George Guelf has forfeited the kingly office, and has ren- 
dered it necessary for the preservation of the people that he should be 
immediately deposed from the same, and divested of all its privileges, 
powers, and prerogatives: and forasmuch as the public liberty may 
be more certainly secured by abolishing an office which all experience 
hath shewn to be inveterately inimical thereto, and it will thereupon 
become further necessary to re-establish such ancient principles as are 
friendly to the rights of the people and to declare certain others which 
may co-operate with and fortify the same in future. 

Be it therefore enacted by the authority of the people that the said, 
George Guelf be, and he hereby is, deposed from the kingly office within 
this government and absolutely divested of all its rights, powers, and 
prerogatives: and that he and his descendants and all persons acting 
by or through him, and all other persons whatsoever shall be and 
forever remain incapable of the same: and that the said office shall 
henceforth cease and never more either in name or substance be re- 
established within this colony.” 


1 A series of grievances and injuries are here recited. 


[114 ] 


The Declaration of Independence 


On this flaming republican exordium follows a concise 
citation of Colonial grievances in language often recalling 
the Declaration of Independence. Next Jefferson pro- 
ceeds to set forth fundamental laws and principles of 
government for his native state. His Model is well worth 
examining; for it shows us exactly what kind of con- 
stitution Jefferson as a practical reformer desired his own 
countrymen to adopt. | 

The legislative, executive, and judiciary were to be 
separate and exclusive. 

The legislature would consist of a House of Representa- 
tives, and a House of Senators. Any elector is qualified 
to be elected to the House of Representatives. All male 
citizens of full age who had paid scot and lot (rates and 
taxes) for five years, or owned 25 acres of land in the coun- 
try or one-fourth of an acre in a town, are qualified to vote. 
The Representative House is to consist of not less than 150 
or more than 300 members. Four hundred electors are 
entitled to elect a member, and the proportion is to be 
adjusted from time to time on the principle of one vote 
one value. 

The Senate is to consist of not less than 15 or more than 
50 members. It is elected by the House of Representa- 
tives. One-third of the Senators retire every three years. 
High court judges are entitled to sit and speak, but not to 
vote in the Senate. Money bills are reserved to the House 
of Representatives; otherwise the legislative powers of 
the two houses are equal, and the assent of both is nec- 
essary to the passing of a law. 

Capital punishment except for murder and Military 
offences is abolished; likewise torture. 

An Administrator, to take the place of the King, is to be 
appointed annually for one year only. He is to have no 


[115 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


power to veto bills, or to dissolve the General Assembly, 
to declare wars, to pardon crimes, or to confer dignities. 
A Privy Council is elected annually by the House of 
Representatives to advise the Administrator. The House 
of Representatives is also vested with the appointment of 
delegates to the American Congress. Judges are chosen 
by the Administrator, subject to the negative of the Privy 
Council. All facts in causes are to be tried by jury after 
evidence given in open court. Every landless citizen is 
entitled to fifty acres of unappropriated land; but no 
lands shall be appropriated until purchased by public 
authorities from native Indian proprietors. 

The laws of descent are by gavelkind, but females are 
to have equal rights with males. 

No person hereafter coming into Virginia “‘shall be held 
within the same in slavery under any pretext whatever.” 
Further “‘all persons shall have full and free liberty of reli- 
gious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or 
maintain any religious institution.” 

There shall be no standing armies in time of peace. 
Printing presses shall be free. 

No salaries shall be given to the Administrator, to leg- 
islators, judges, Privy Councillors or Delegates to Con- 
gress, but reasonable expenses of subsistence may be pro- 
vided if the legislature so direct. No person shall hold 
office who has given a bribe to obtain it. 

None of these fundamental laws can be repealed or al- 
tered except by the personal consent of the people shown 
by majorities for such repeal or alteration in two-thirds of 
the counties. 

So much for Jefferson’s New Model of a Constitution 
for Virginia. At 33 he isa philosophic radical, a democrat, 
favouring complete religious toleration, freedom of the 


[ 116 | 


The Declaration of Independence 


press and the abolition of entail. He confers all impor- 
tant powers, including peace and war, on an Assembly 
freely elected by the whole population of adult male tax- 
payers in equal electoral districts. 

Meanwhile the British forces had evacuated Boston, and 
Washington had occupied New York. The English ex- 
pedition had not yet crossed the Atlantic. By this time 
the sentiment for independence and separation from 
Great Britain had ripened, and we may return to Jef- 
ferson’s Memoir, based, as he tells us, on notes taken by 
him in Congress. His entry for June 7, 1776, runs: — 


“The delegates of Virginia moved, in obedience to instructions from 
their constituents, that the Congress should declare that these United 
Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; 
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and 
that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain 
is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; that measures should be imme- 
diately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and a Con- 
federation be formed to bind the Colonies more closely together.” 


Next day (Saturday, June 8) Congress referred the 
Virginia Motion to a Committee of the Whole House, and 
passed that day and Monday the tenth in debate. Jeffer- 
son, who took pretty full notes, has left us an epitome of 
the arguments used for and against the policy of declaring 
independence. The summary itself must be summarized ; 
for it takes up several pages of the memoir. Against 
a Declaration Robert R. Livingstone, John Dickinson, 
E. Rutledge, and others argued that such a step would be 
premature, and should be deferred until the voice of the 
people drove them to it. The Middle Colonies — Mary- 
land, Delaware, Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, and New York 
— “‘were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to the British 
connection, but they were fast ripening, and in a short 


aren | 


Thomas Jefferson 


time would join in the general voice of America.”’ The 
delegates of some colonies had received no instructions on 
the subject, while others had been instructed to oppose 
any such resolution. If Congress voted now by a ma- 
jority for Independence, the Middle Colonies, or some of 
them, might secede. A colonial secession would not be 
compensated by a foreign alliance; nor indeed, if the 
colonies were divided, could foreign support be looked 
for. In any case they should await intelligence from the 
agent they had despatched to Parts. 

On behalf of an immediate Declaration John Adams, 
R. H. Lee, George Wythe, and others pointed out that no 
speaker had argued against the policy of Independence 
or the right to separate. The king himself had dissolved 
the bond of allegiance by levying war on the colonies. 
The king’s answer to the Lord Mayor and Common Coun- 
cil of London, which had just come to hand, left no room 
for doubt. The people of America favoured independence, 
and wanted their representatives to lead the way. Only 
Pennsylvania and Maryland hesitated. Their backward- 
ness was due partly to the influence of the proprietary 
power, partly to the fact that they had not yet been in- 
vaded. It was vain to wait for perfect unanimity, as all 
men are never of one sentiment on any question. The for- 
ward colonies must again run the hazard. The Dutch 
revolution began with a secession from Spain of only three 
states. Without a declaration of independence they could 
not expect aid from France and Spain. Delay was dan- 
gerous. If France would assist them now, the supplies of 
the British armies might be cut off. “‘The only misfor- 
tune is that we did not enter into alliance with France 
six months sooner, as, besides opening her ports for the 
vent of our last year’s produce, she might have marched 


[ 118 | 


The Declaration of Independence 


an army into Germany and prevented the petty princes 
there from selling their unhappy subjects to subdue us.” 

It appearing in the course of the two days’ debate — 
so Jefferson wrote — that the Colonies of New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South 
Carolina were not yet matured for falling from the parent 
stem, but were fast advancing to that state, it was thought 
most prudent to wait a while for them, and to postpone 
the final decision to July 1. 

“That this might occasion as little delay as possible a committee 

was appointed to prepare a Declaration of Independence. The com- 
mittee were John Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Living- 
stone and myself. Committees were also appointed at the same time, 
to prepare a plan of confederation for the Colonies, and to state the 
terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance. The committee for 
drawing the Declaration.of Independence desired me to doit. It was 
accordingly done, and being approved by them, I reported it to the 
House on Friday, the 28th of June, when it was read and ordered to lie 
on the table. On July 1st, the House resolved itself into a committee 
and resumed consideration of the original motion made by the dele- 
gates of Virginia, which being again debated through the day, was car- 
ried in the affirmative by the votes of New Hampshire, Connecticut, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North 
Carolina, and Georgia.” 
South Carolina and Pennsylvania voted against it. Dela- 
ware was divided. The delegates from New York declared 
they were for it themselves, but must await instructions. 
Next day South Carolina, Delaware, and Pennsylvania 
fell into line, and soon afterwards the Convention of New 
York sent its approval. Congress then proceeded to con- 
sider the Declaration of Independence. Its passage was 
not a smooth one. Jefferson says in his Memoir : — 

“The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keep- 
ing terms with still haunted the mindsof many. For this reason, those 
passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck 


[119 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


out, lest they should give them offence. The clause too, reprobating the 
enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to 
South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain 
the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to 
continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender 
under those censures; for though their people had very few slaves 
themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to 
others. The debates having taken up the greater parts of the 2nd, 3rd, 
and 4th days of July, were, on the evening of the last, closed; the 
Declaration was reported by the committee, agreed to by the House, 
and signed by every member present, except Mr. Dickinson.” 


Such is the authentic account by Jefferson of the pro- 
ceedings in Congress and Congressional Committee from 
June 7, when the Delegates of Virginia moved the Res- 
olution, to July 4, when the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence as amended was reported, ratified, and signed. A 
vast amount of research and criticism has been expended 
by American historians on this, the most precious docu- 
ment in American history; and Jefferson’s narrative has 
been confirmed in almost every particular, except that the 
signatures were not, as he supposed, all affixed on July 
the 4th. It is certain that some of the delegates signed it 
a few days later. A remarkable fact not mentioned by 
Jefferson is that he received more votes than any other 
member, when this, the most important committee ever 
appointed by Congress, was elected. Consequently he 
became chairman of the Committee and was asked by his 
fellow members to draft the Declaration of Independence. 

At this time Jefferson was lodging in Philadelphia at the 
house of one Graaf. It was a new brick house, as he after- 
wards recalled, three stories high “‘on the south side of 
Market Street, probably between Seventh and Eighth 
Streets.’ He rented (at 35 shillings a week) the second 
floor — a parlour and bedroom ready furnished. In that 

(120 | 


The Declaration of Independence 


parlour on a writing desk of his own design he spent some 
twenty days composing the Declaration of Independence. 
In 1825 a favourite granddaughter leaving Monticello for 
Boston to marry Joseph Coolidge, lost her writing desk 
at sea with some treasured letters. To console her, Jeffer- 
son sent Coolidge his Independence desk with the follow- 
ing inscription attached : — 

“Thomas Jefferson gives this writing desk to Joseph Coolidge, Jr. 
as a memorial of affection. It was made from a drawing of his own by 
Ben Randolph, cabinet-maker at Philadelphia, with whom he first 
lodged on his arrival in that city, in May 1776, and is the identical one 
on which he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Politics, as well 
as religion, has its superstitions. These gaining strength with time, 
may one day give imaginary value to this relic, for its associations with 
the birth of the Great Charter of our Independence. 

Monticello, November 18, 1825.” 


Of a document which stands in the history of human 
liberty with the Magna Charta, praise is superfluous. Of 
its majestic force and dignity let the first two para- 
graphs — from which only seven of Jefferson’s words were 
omitted and only three altered — speak for themselves. 


A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, 
in General Congress assembled. 

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one 
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with 
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and 
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle 
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created 
equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable 
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; 
that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, de- 
riving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that when- 
ever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is 
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new gov- 


ie 


Thomas Jefferson 


ernment, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its 
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their 
safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments 
long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; 
and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more dis- 
posed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by 
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long 
train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, 
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their 
right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide 
new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient suffer- 
ance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains 
them to alter their former systems of government.” 


Then follows an impressive recital of George the Third’s 
usurpations, which marked him out as a tyrant ‘unfit to 
be the ruler of a free people.’ American appeals to the 
British people and warnings addressed to parliament had 
been of no avail. 


“We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, 
in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the 
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the 
authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and 
declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to 
the British crown, and that all political connection between them and 
the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and 
that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy 
war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do 
all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. 

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the 
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our 
lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour.” 


If praise of the Declaration is superfluous, criticism is 
vain. Modern taste may object to a word here or a sen- 
tence there; but the whole will survive, an imperishable 
expression of a great moment in the history of freedom, 

bro |] 


a 


The Declaration of Independence 


in the history of nationality, in the history of republican 
government. Inspired by the crisis, in an atmosphere 
throbbing with popular emotion, Jefferson’s studied prose 
reveals in its grandeur of purpose and depth of thought 
a noble response to the national call. Successful at the 
moment, fortunate in the event, it is and will remain the 
most cherished possession of republican America. 

No wonder then that all the incidents of its composition 
and adoption have been zealously gathered. After two 
or three small amendments by Franklin and Adams, 
Jefferson’s draft was submitted to Congress and debated 
for three days, from the second to the fourth of July. 
While it was being battered and buffeted the young and 
sensitive author sat in silent agony, modestly leaving 
Adams to protect his handiwork. It had been written and 
rewritten, polished and repolished; and few authors like 
one blue pencil, let alone an assembly of editors. But 
though some members were inclined to carp and cavil, it is 
agreed that most of the omissions and changes were im- 
provements. A few passages were criticised for their sub- 
stance, others for their form. The words ‘Scotch and 
other foreign auxiliaries’ excited the ire of a delegate of 
Scottish descent. “‘Several strictures on the conduct of 
the British king, in negativing our repeated repeals of the 
law which permitted the importation of slaves, were dis- 
approved,”’ wrote Jefferson, ““by some Southern gentle- 
men, whose reflections were not yet matured to the full 
abhorrence of that traffic. Although the offensive expres- 
sions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen con- 
tinued their depredations on other parts of the instru- 
ment.” 

It was of course unfair to saddle George the Third with 
responsibility for American slavery, and for the odious 


eee 


Thomas Jefferson 


traffic in human life, though the Crown deserved severe 
censure for vetoing measures passed by the Virginian leg- 
islature to suppress the importation of negroes. In any 
case Jefferson’s paragraph (omitted by Congress), de- 
nouncing George the Third for the American slave trade, 
would have been stronger, if its invective had been less 
violent. Yet we must admire this generous effort to com- 
mit the United Colonies! to a strong moral censure on 
domestic slavery, when they were proclaiming to the world 
their political emancipation. John Adams says that, when 
the Committee met to con over Jefferson’s draft, he was 
delighted with its high tone, and especially with the sen- 
tences on negro slavery. At a time when the British gov- 
ernment was inciting the slaves to rise against their mas- 
ters in the South, a sweeping measure of abolition was of 
course out of the question. But Jefferson might well 
think the moment favourable for a declaration against 
the slave trade, seeing that it had been suspended by war. 
A solemn stigma affixed to this infamous trafic by Con- 
gress, and inserted in the charter of American rights, would 
have been a grand instrument later on in the hands of 
those who felt with Jefferson that abolition by gradual 
steps was not merely required by the religion of humanity 
but was essential to the future happiness and security of 
the American people. Jefferson had already given proof 
of his zeal for this cause; and he returned, as we shall 
see, again and yet again to the charge — the only powerful 
statesman of his day in America who was willing to risk 
political fortune and social favour in an active effort to 
remove this dark blot from the institutions of his native 
land. 

While Congress was discussing and pruning his periods, 


1 Jefferson wrote “states”; but Congress preferred “colonies.” 


[ 124 ] 


The Declaration of Independence 


Jefferson was sitting beside Dr. Franklin. The veteran, 
observing his young friend “writhing a little’? under so 
much acrimonious criticism, comforted him with the story 
of John Thompson the hatter. “I have made it a rule,” 
said the Doctor, “‘to avoid becoming the draftsman of 
papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson 


”? 


from an incident, which [ will relate to you” : — 


“When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an ap- 
prenticed hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop 
for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with 
a proper inscription. He composed it in these words: ‘John Thomp- 
son, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,’ with a figure of a 
hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit it to his friends for 
theiramendments. The first he showed it to thought the word ‘Hatter’ 
tautologous, because followed by the words ‘makes hats,’ which showed 
he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word 
‘makes’ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not 
care who made the hats. If good and to their mind they would buy by 
whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the 
words ‘for ready money’ were useless, as it was not the custom of the 
place to sell on credit. Everyone who purchased expected to pay. They 
were parted with, and the inscription now stood ‘John Thompson sells 
hats.’ ‘Se//s hats!’ said his next friend, ‘why nobody will expect you 
to give them away ; what then is the use of that word?’ It was stricken 
out, and ‘hats’ followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the 
board. So the inscription was reduced ultimately to “John Thompson’ 
with the figure of a hat subjoined.” 


Whether Jefferson enjoyed the humour of it at the time, 
we may doubt; but he saw it afterwards. Another of 
Jefferson’s favourite anecdotes tells how the end was 
accelerated by a providential dispensation. Near the old 
State House at Philadelphia, now called Independence 
Hall, where the debates were held, was a livery stable. 
The afternoon of July 4 was very hot. Through the 
windows of the hall, which were wide open, swarms of 


[125 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


horse flies descended and assailed the silk stockinged legs 
of the delegates. Under this infliction the majority which 
wished to conclude the discussion grew impatient; and so 
on that very day the Declaration was approved, after 
Congress had made eighteen suppressions, six trifling 
additions, and ten alterations. 

The young author remained silent through these dis- 
cussions, too modest, or too proud, to defend his own 
work. John Adams, the best orator and debater in that 
Congress, was protagonist. He fought for the whole docu- 
ment, including the slavery passage. Jefferson never 
failed to testify to John Adams’s splendid services on those 
memorable days. Nor was the New Englander as a rule 
unappreciative of the Virginian’s character and talents. 
““T always loved Jefferson,” cried Adams, after their es- 
trangement and reconciliation. But in a moment of 
vanity and jealousy (at the age of 87) he was prompted 
by a letter from Timothy Pickering about the Declaration 
of Independence to say : — 

“As you justly observe there is not an idea in it but what had been 
hackneyed in Congress for two years before. The substance of it is con- 
tained in the declaration of rights, and the violation of those rights, 
in the Journals of Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is con- 
tained in a pamphlet, voted and printed by the town of Boston, before 
the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, as I suppose in one 
of his lucid intervals, and pruned and polished by Samuel Adams.” 

On seeing this in print Jefferson wrote with admirable 
restraint and good sense (August 30, 1823) to Madison : — 

“Pickering’s observations, and Mr. Adams’ in addition, ‘that it con- 
tained no new ideas, that it is a common-place compilation, its senti- 
ments hackneyed in Congress for two years before, and its essence con- 
tained in Otis’s pamphlet’ may all be true. Of that I am not to be the 


judge. Richard Henry Lee charged it as copied from Locke’s treatise 
on government. Otis’s pamphlet I never saw, and whether I had 


[ 126 | 


The Declaration of Independence 


gathered my ideas from reading or reflection I do not know. I know 
only that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it. I did 
not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether, 
and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before. Had 
Mr. Adams been so restrained, Congress would have lost the benefit of 
his bold and impressive advocations of the rights of Revolution. For no 
man’s confident and fervid addresses, more than Mr. Adams’, encour- 
aged and supported us through the difficulties surrounding us, which, 
like the ceaseless action of gravity, weighed on us by night and by day. 
Yet, on the same ground we may ask, what of these elevated thoughts 
was new, or can be afirmed never before to have entered the conception 
of man? 

Whether also the sentiments of Independence and the reasons for 
declaring it, which make so great a portion of the instrument had been 
‘hackneyed’ in Congress for two years before the 4th of July, ’76, or 
this dictum also of Mr. Adams be another slip of memory, let history 
say. This however I will say for Mr. Adams, that he supported the 
Declaration with zeal and ability, fighting fearlessly for every word 
OMI 


The hunt for a speech or pamphlet which Jefferson 
might have copied has failed. Everything has been ran- 
sacked. His masterpiece turns out to be just as original, 
or just as hackneyed as the Magna Charta. It was the 
product of a political genius working, under the pressure 
and passionate inspiration of a glorious moment in his 
country’s history, for a cause on which he had embarked 
heart and soul, life and fortune. If he had brought with 
him his library from Monticello, and had consulted his 
favourite political authors, Coke, Sydney, Locke, and the 
rest of them, for ideas and phrases, the thing would have 
been a failure. It was the fruit of well-digested reading, 

1 Jefferson added: ‘Timothy thinks the instrument the better for having a 
fourth of it expunged. He would have thought it still better, had the other 
three-fourths gone out also; all but the single sentiment (the only one he ap- 


proves) which recommends friendship to his dear England, whenever she is 
willing to be at peace with us.” 


i277 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


deep reflection, long and strenuous controversy, not a copy 
nor an imitation of the past, but a new effervescence of 
spirit, an expression, in language characteristic of the man 
and the times, of a new policy. 

The Declaration was issued at a propitious moment. 
The Colonies were practically free of the enemy. Lord 
Dunmore had failed to kindle a civil or a servile war in 
Virginia, and the last and the most odious of its governors 
was about to sail home. General Howe had not yet re- 
turned from Halifax to drive Washington out of New 
York. Many thought the war was more than half won 
and independence practically achieved. So the Declara- 
tion, read by magistrates in court-houses and market 
places, by officers to their troops, by the clergy to their 
congregations, was received everywhere with joy and 
thanksgiving — with psalms and prayers by the Puritans 
of New England, who had tasted the bitterness of war; 
with feasting, bonfires and revelry by the livelier spirits 
of the South. In New York, King George’s leaden statue 
on Bowling Green was pulled down and cast into bullets. 
Virginia had already struck his name from the prayer 
book. The Quakers indeed, whose stronghold was Penn- 
sylvania, remained conscientiously neutral, unalterably 
opposed to war even for liberty and doubtful whether 
the new order would be an improvement on the old. Per- 
secuted by both sides they ministered to the sick and 
wounded, and relieved all suffering with Christian charity. 
The Tories, a large minority, especially strong in the 
Middle States, were now forced to choose sides. Many 
of them had already gone into voluntary exile. Some 
thousands of them threw in their lot with the British forces 
and imparted additional bitterness to the long and doubt- 
ful struggle. 


[ 128 ] 





Aeclaration of Andependence. 
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out OF Blais, ab Wess. | 
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Fichedjenar litrritye Jory 








The Declaration of Independence 


So ends the first part of Thomas Jefferson’s career. He 
had written the Declaration of Independence; he was no 
longer a Colonial subject of King George the Third, no 
longer a citizen of the British Empire. He had trans- 
ferred his allegiance from King to Congress. By his own 
handwriting he was a Republican. 


[ 129 | 


BOOK II 
REFORMER AND GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA 
CHAPTER I 
JEFFERSON’S REFORMS, 1776-1779 


“And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform 
Some certain edicts and some strait decrees 
That lie too heavy on the commonwealth.” 


— SHAKESPEARE 


HOUGH he was only thirty-three, Jefferson’s reputa- 
: tion had spread through the revolted Colonies. 


After the Declaration of Independence the ball was 
at his feet. By the general consent of his fellow Congress- 
men he was marked out to lead the civil administration, 
as Washington had been chosen to conduct the military 
campaigns. Government by committees is very difficult, 
and Jefferson had the knowledge, resourcefulness, inex- 
haustible industry, tactful management of men, and skill 
in devising the formulas that reconcile differences, which 
make an ideal chairman. But two considerations decided 
him against the career thus opened to ambition. He could 
not make Philadelphia — a full ten days’ journey from 
Monticello — his headquarters. Passionately devoted to 
a delicate wife, he dared not leave her and the babies alone 
amid all the risks of war. And evenif his presence had not 
been so urgently needed at Monticello, he felt that Vir- 
ginia, his native state, had the first call upon his patrio- 


[ 130 | 


Jefferson’s Reforms 


tism. Being elected member of the Virginia Legislature 
by his own county of Albemarle, he retired from Con- 
gress and took his seat in the House of Representatives 
at Williamsburg on October 7, 1776. 

The path of reform is never smooth. The greater the 
need, the stronger the opposition. The more flagrant and 
numerous the abuses, the more powerful is the combina- 
tion of interested parties to maintain them. Virginia was 
still a Colonial England, free indeed from the incubus of 
pauperism, but held back by the institution of negro 
slavery and far behind Massachusetts in education and 
local self-government. Its criminal laws were barbarous. 
Under the religious code Baptist ministers were still ar- 
rested for preaching the Gospel; Quakers could be pil- 
loried; witches and heretics could be burnt to death; 
Unitarians might be punished for their opinions by three 
years’ imprisonment, or deprived of the custody of their 
own children; all dissenters were liable to support the 
Established Church. The Justices who administered all 
these laws were mostly of the official religion. Property 
and privilege found support in the ownership of slaves 
and in land laws which had created by entail a territorial 
oligarchy. To democratise, liberalise, and humanise the 
laws and their administration was the task of a reformer 
whose ideals were equality of political rights and equality 
of economic opportunity. To this task Jefferson brought 
a marvellous consortium of talents and qualifications — 
popularity with the people, connections and personal 
friendship with the leading families, the respect of the 
intellectuals, legal knowledge, skill in draughtsmanship, 
a silken suavity of manner, an iron tenacity of purpose. 
Yet with all this only the courage and strength of a politi- 
cal Hercules would have entered the list for such labours 


[131 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


at such a time. Let us endeavour with the aid of his own 
simple and modest Memoir to describe very briefly what 
he tried to do and what he accomplished. 

On October 11, 1776, four days after the opening of 
the first session of the first Legislative Assembly of the 
new independent State, Jefferson introduced a bill to es- 
tablish and re-organise the Courts of Justice. This was 
in due course passed. Next day he brought in a much 
more controversial measure. In the early days of the 
Colony individuals had procured large grants of land from 
the Crown, and, desiring to found great families, had set- 
tled them in English fashion on eldest sons. Thus a privi- 
leged patrician order had been formed, from which the 
King had habitually selected his Counsellors of State. 
Jefferson’s Bill proposed to annul this privilege by declar- 
ing all ‘tenants in tail’ to hold their lands in fee simple, 
thus enabling landowners to divide their estates among 
their children. It was passed after a hard struggle. The 
Conservative opposition was led by Edmund Pendleton, 
“the ablest man in debate I have ever met with,” so Jef- 
ferson wrote long afterwards : — 

“Tf he lost the main battle he returned upon you, and regained so 
much of it as to make it a drawn one, by dexterous manoeuvres, skir- 
mishes in detail, and the recovery of small advantages, which, little 
singly, were important all together. You never knew when you were 
clear of him, but were harassed by his perseverance, until the patience 
was worn down of all who had less of it than himself. Add to this, that 
he was one of the most virtuous and benevolent of men, the kindest 
friend, the most amiable and pleasant of companions, which ensured a 
favourable reception to whatever came from him.” 

Some of his fellow landlords never forgave Jefferson for 
this blow at one of their most cherished institutions. 

That the whole body of Virginian law must be revised 
was generally agreed, and Jefferson’s Bill to accomplish 


[ 132 ] 


Jefferson’s Reforms 


this large purpose was passed on October 24. To exe- 
cute the work a committee was appointed, and eventually 
the task was undertaken by Pendleton, Wythe, and Jef- 
ferson. They worked at it from early in 1777 until the 
spring of 1779, and reported to the General Assembly in 
June of that year, having reduced all the British Statutes 
from Magna Charta downwards and all the laws of Vir- 
ginia from the establishment of the Legislature in the 
fourth year of James the First, which they thought should 
be retained, into 126 Bills, making a printed folio of only 
go pages. In the apportionment of the work, writes Jef- 
ferson, ‘‘the common law and statutes to the 4 James I. 
(when our separate legislature was established) were as- 
signed to me; the British statutes, from that period to 
the present day to Mr. Wythe; and the Virginia laws to 
Mr. Pendleton.” As the law of descents and the criminal 
law fell to Jefferson, he asked his colleagues to settle the 
leading principles on which he should proceed. With 
respect to inheritance he says: — 


“TI proposed to abolish the law of primogeniture and to make real 
estate descendible in parcenary to the next of kin, as personal property 
is, by the statute of distribution. Mr. Pendleton wished to preserve 
the right of primogeniture, but seeing at once that that could not pre- 
vail, he proposed we should adopt the Hebrew principle and give a 
double portion to the elder son. I observed, that if the elder son could 
eat twice as much, or do double work it might be a natural evidence of 
his right to a double portion; but being on a par, in his powers and 
wants, with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par also in the 
partition of the patrimony; and such was the decision of the other 
members.” 


In the matter of crimes and their punishment Jefferson 
was a disciple of Beccaria. It was agreed that the punish- 
ment of death should be abolished except for treason and 
murder. In revising the later statutes Jefferson took 


[283°] 


Thomas Jefferson 


care to reform the language, considering that obscurity 
and tautology ought to be removed from the laws of his 
country. But what was good for the country might be 
bad for litigation, and there was a long delay before the 
revised laws were adopted. At last in 1785 “‘by the un- 
wearied exertions of Mr. Madison in opposition to the 
endless quibbles, chicaneries, perversions, vexations and 
delays of lawyers and demi-lawyers most of the Bills were 
passed by the legislature and with little alteration.” 

The Committee for revising the laws agreed that a sys- 
tematic scheme of general education should be proposed. 
Accordingly Jefferson prepared three Bills to provide for 
the education of the whole people. The first divided the 
counties into hundreds or wards, each of which was to 
have an elementary school, where reading, writing, and 
arithmetic should be taught. At the same time it divided 
the State into 24 districts, each with a higher school for 
more advanced instruction. The Second Bill proposed 
to amend and enlarge William and Mary College — in 
fact to make it a University. The third provided for the 
establishment of a public library — an extraordinary in- 
novation. But Jefferson had over-estimated the intelli- 
gence of the Assembly. Not one of the three Bills was 
placed on the Statute book. At last in 1796 his Elemen- 
tary Education Bill was passed, but with an amendment 
making its adoption optional in each county. Jefferson’s 
Bill had thrown the cost of the schools on the inhabitants 
in proportion to their taxable capacity, thus making 
wealth contribute to the education of the poor. Conse- 
quently, he says, ‘“‘the Justices being generally of the more 
wealthy class were unwilling to incur that burden, and 
I believe it was not suffered to commence in a single 
county.”’ The ‘amendment’ therefore destroyed the Bill. 


[ 134 ] 


Jefferson’s Reforms 


The Bill consolidating the laws of slavery in Virginia 
was a mere digest. Jefferson’s plan for the emancipation 
and subsequent emigration of all slaves born after a cer- 
tain date found no sufficient support. “The public mind 
would not bear the proposition,” so he wrote in 1821, 
“nor will it bear it even to this day. Yet the day is not 
distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will fol- 
low. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of 
fate than that these people are to be free.” 

If Jefferson could have shewn his opponents through 
a glass the battle fields round Richmond, they might 
have been more willing to provide for the extinction of 
white ignorance and black slavery. But in every age and 
every country the prophet is without honour; the golden 
gift of social vision possessed by a few rare spirits is 
neither prized nor understood by the many. 

One other Bill, the most famous and glorious of all, was 
drawn up by Jefferson to crown his scheme of reformation. 
When he joined the new legislature in October, 1776, peti- 
tions were pouring in from dissenting bodies all over Vir- 
ginia demanding the disestablishment and disendowment 
of the Anglican—now the Episcopal — Church. The 
petitions were referred to a Committee of the whole 
House. “After desperate conflicts,” lasting from October 
11 to December 5, they prevailed so far only as to 
repeal the laws which rendered criminal the maintenance 
of unorthodox religious opinions, or failure to attend 
church, or the exercise of other modes of worship than 
that established. Dissenters were also exempted from con- 
tributing to the support of the Episcopal Church. The 
controversy dragged on until 1779, gna Disestablish- 
ment was finally carried. 

But this practical achievement was far from satisfying 


[135 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Jefferson, who was ambitious that Virginia should sub- 
scribe and testify to his own ideal of perfect toleration. 
He therefore prepared a Magna Charta of religious liberty 
entitled ‘A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,’ 
better known by the celebrated inscription on his tomb- 
stone as ‘the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom.’ 
This was left with the revised laws for subsequent adop- 
tion by the Legislature. But when the war was over, the 
Presbyterians and many other dissenters united with the 
disestablished Episcopalians of Virginia in a demand for 
state support; and in 1784 a measure was proposed to 
establish a provision for teachers of the Christian Religion 
by a general assessment on taxpayers. This movement 
was backed by George Washington, Patrick Henry, and 
Richard H. Lee. Jefferson was Minister in France. In 
his absence the opposition, led by James Madison, George 
Mason, and George Nicholas, gained the day; and in 
1786 Jefferson’s Bill for religious Freedom was passed by 
the Assembly. Before victory was achieved, when writing 
his Notes on Virginia (in 1781), Jefferson took occasion to 
expound the true philosophy of toleration in an argument 
of much force and passion, which was often quoted against 
him by political theologians : — 


“The error,” he observes, “seems not sufficiently eradicated, that 
the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject 
to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have no authority over 
such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of 
conscience we never submitted; we could not submit. We are answer- 
able for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend 
to such acts only as are injurious to others, but it does me no injury for 
my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks 
my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of 
my justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. 
Constraint may make him worse by making hima hypocrite, but it will 


[ 136 ] 


Jefferson’s Reforms 


never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but 
will not cure them. Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual 
agents against error. Give a loose to them, they will support the true 
religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their 
investigation. They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only. 
Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry, Christianity 
could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged 
at the era of the Reformation, the corruptions of Christianity could 
not have been purged away. If it be restrained now, the present cor- 
ruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged. Was the govern- 
ment to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in 
such keeping as our souls arenow. . . . Government is just as infallible, 
too when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the Inquisition 
for affirming that the earth was a sphere; the government had de- 
clared it to be flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his 
error. This error, however, at length prevailed, the earth became a 
globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round its axle by a vortex. 
The government in which he lived was wise enough to see that this was 
no question of civil jurisdiction, or we should all have been involved 
by authority in vortices. In fact, the vortices have been exploded, and 
the Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established, 
on the basis of reason, than it would be were the government to step 
in, and make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment 
have been indulged and error has fled before them. It is error alone 
which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. 

“‘ Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors ? 
Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as pub- 
lic reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. 
But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and 
stature. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. .. . 

“Ts uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and 
children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tor- 
tured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards 
uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half 
of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery 
and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a 
thousand million of people; that these profess probably a thousand 
different systems of religion; that ours is but one of that thousand; 
that if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see 


[ 137 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the 
fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by 
force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. 
To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged; and how can 
we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves? But every 
State, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say 
I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of 
establishment?” 


Jefferson went beyond Milton or Locke. His thoughts 
on liberty rose from earth to heaven. His toleration knew 
no limits, was hampered by no religious prejudices or 
reasons of state. Here we have Jefferson’s 4reopagitica. 
Not satisfied with a mere conventional state of toleration 
he wished to establish perfect freedom of conscience on a 
legal foundation. And his wish was gratified, to their en- 
during credit, by his fellow countrymen in Virginia. His 
noble statute, a monument to Jefferson’s fame more du- 
rable than any bronze effigy, I shall venture to transcribe 
in full, those words of the original draft which were struck 
out in the Bill as enacted being printed in italics : — 


A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom. 


Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own 
will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that 
Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme 
will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of re- 
straint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or 
burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypoc- 
risy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy 
Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet 
chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty 
power to do, but to extend its influence on reason alone; that the impious 
presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, 
being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed do- 
minion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes 


[ 138 ] 


Jefferson’s Reforms 


of thinking as the only true and infallible; and as such endeavouring 
to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false re- 
ligions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time: that 
to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation 
of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; 
that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own 
religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giv- 
ing his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would 
make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to right- 
eousness, and is withdrawing frcm the ministry those temporary re- 
wards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, 
are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the 
instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on 
our religious opinions, avy more than our opinions in physics or geom- 
etry; that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the pub- 
lic confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to 
offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that 
religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and 
advantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens, he has a natu- 
ral right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very re- 
ligion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly 
honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and con- 
form to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand 
such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in 
their way; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil govern- 
ment, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to 
intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profes- 
sion or propagation of principles, on [the] supposition of their ill ten- 
dency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, 
because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opin- 
ions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of 
others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is 
time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers 
to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and 
good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to 
herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and 
has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition 
disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors 
ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. 


[ 139 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


WE, the General Assembly of Virginia, do enact, That no man shall be 
compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry 
whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in 
his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious 
opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by 
argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the 
same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. 

And though we know well that this Assembly, elected by the people 
for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain 
the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our 
own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no 
effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights 
hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any 
act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its opera- 
tion, such act will be an infringement of natural right. 


On the passing of the statute in 1786 Jefferson, who was 
Minister in Paris, had it printed in English and in a French 
translation. It went through several editions in both 
languages, and did, we may be sure, good service to the 
cause of religious liberty in Europe as well as in America. 

Though the form of a statute does not lend itself to fine 
composition, yet Jefferson’s style and language while 
falling far short of the grandeur of the Areopagitica de- 
serve their meed of praise. But it is for its contents that 
this Act claims immortality among human ordinances. 
The first law ever passed by a popular Assembly giving 
perfect freedom of conscience places its author among 
the great liberators of mankind. 

It may be said of Jefferson as truly as of Milton that 
his love of liberty was never merely political. He cared 
as much for the freedom and independence of the mind 
as for the freedom and independence of the state. He was 
as eager to safeguard the individual from the tyranny of 
priests and politicians as to liberate the nation from foreign 
oppression. 

[ 140] 


CHAPTER II 
GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA JUNE, 1779 TO JUNE, 1781 


“Then to advise how war may best, upheld, 
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold.” 
— MILton 


n the retirement of Patrick Henry, its first Governor 
under the new order, the Assembly of Virginia had 
to elect a successor. Jefferson was candidate of 

the Reformers; his old friend John Page was nominated 
by the Conservatives. The candidates took no part, 
though their supporters canvassed vigorously. On June 
1, 1779, Jefferson was elected by a small majority. In 
reply to Page’s congratulations he regretted that the zeal 
of their respective friends should have placed them in com- 
petition. “I was comforted, however, with the reflection, 
that it was their competition, not ours, and that the dif- 
ference of the numbers, which decided between us, was too 
insignificant to give you a pain, or me a pleasure, had our 
dispositions towards each other been such as to admit 
those sensations.’’ Twenty-three years later Page was 
appointed Governor and received a letter of congratula- 
tion from President Jefferson. 

On this occasion Page had good reason to rejoice that he 
was not elected. 

Conditions in Virginia were very bad and destined to 
become much worse. In May, the very last month of 
Patrick Henry’s administration, the British had used their 


[141 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


command of the sea to make their first big raid on Vir- 
ginia. An expedition under Admiral Collier had entered 
Hampton Roads and seized Portsmouth. From this base 
plundering parties went out in various directions. One 
marched on Suffolk, the chief military depdt of Virginia, 
dispersed a force of 2,000 militiamen, and destroyed large 
quantities of food and ammunition. Jefferson might well, 
in his speech of acceptance, mingle thanks for the honour 
bestowed upon him with anxiety “‘lest my poor endeavours 
should fall short of the kind expectations of my country.” 
The second Governor of the State could with confidence 
promise “impartiality, assiduous attention, and sincere 
affection to the great American Cause.” But he inherited 
a rapidly depreciating currency and an empty Treasury. 
When he took office the Governor’s salary of £4,500 in 
paper money did not pay for the food of his household. 
His second year’s salary was equivalent to the price of a 
saddle. Another inheritance was a territory exposed to the 
attacks of a Sea Power and without means of defence; 
for throughout his term of office Washington insisted that 
Virginia, instead of making preparations against raids, 
should devote her resources to the support of the main 
armies operating in the north and in the south. Jefferson 
played the part assigned to him with perfect loyalty. 
Fortune so contrived that the future protagonist of state 
rights was bound while Governor to sacrifice the security 
of his beloved Virginia to the necessities, real or supposed, 
of the Union, and in so doing to run the gauntlet of much 
unpopularity at home. Had he remained in office six 
months longer, Jefferson could have celebrated the glorious 
termination at Yorktown of a strategy which had involved 
heavy losses to his own people, losses from which one of 
his own properties never fully recovered. That unmerited 


[ 142 | 


Governor of Virginia 


reproaches, which cut him to the quick, were cast upon 
him when he retired is not at all surprising. That after 
his conduct had been justified they should have been re- 
vived later on by party venom with additional charges 
of cowardice was in the nature of things. But that they 
should still be popping up in the literature of our own 
time is a little puzzling and disheartening. Evidently the 
victory of Truth in history may be long delayed by the 
lingering prejudices of party controversy. 

To understand the story of Jefferson’s governorship we 
must go back to October 17, 1777, when Burgoyne capit- 
ulated to Gates at Saratoga. It was the turning point 
in the war; for it enabled Franklin to conclude that al- 
liance with the French monarchy which eventually de- 
prived King George of his Colonies, and then by ruining 
the public finances of France set in train a new revolution 
which was to deprive the French King of his head. 

After Saratoga a real peace effort was made by Lord 
North. He offered to abandon all that the British Crown 
had originally fought for, if the Colonies would remain 
within the British Empire. But the compact with France, 
which stipulated that the war should continue until in- 
dependence was achieved, made an accommodation im- 
possible. 

After that disaster to British arms the war languished, 
and interest shifted gradually from the north to the south. 
In Europe Saratoga was thought to have ensured Ameri- 
can independence, and so in the end it did by procuring 
the French Alliance. But at first French aid barely kept 
the Republican cause on its legs. A year after Saratoga 
Washington was in the depth of despondency. Prices were 
rising fast, as paper money depreciated, demoralising 
trade and spreading ruin among the people. Drastic 


[ 143 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


taxation would have arrested the mischief;, but the in- 
dividual States refused to impose it, and Congress was 
powerless. Without French munitions, loans, and sub- 
sidies, the American armies could not have beeh main- 
tained. In December, 1778, Washington wrote: “Our 
affairs are in a more distressed, ruinous, and deplorable 
condition than they have been since the. commencement 
of the war. . . . The common interests of America are 
mouldering and sinking into irretrievable ruin, if a remedy 
is not soon applied.” The value of money, he declared, 
was sinking fifty per cent a day in Philadelphia. 

Clinton had succeeded Howe as British Commander- 
in-Chief, with Cornwallis as his second in command. 
Philadelphia had been abandoned by the British forces, 
which were now concentrated in New York. In the 
month of June, 1779, Spain joined in the Alliance against 
Great Britain. Yet George III was still obstinately bent 
on subjugating his rebellious subjects — though France 
and Spain were leagued against England with the thir- 
teen revolted Colonies, and Holland was about to join 
her foes. To judge from the gloom of Washington’s let- 
ters and the economic exhaustion of the American States 
the King might still hope for success. In 1779, 140 million 
continental paper dollars were printed by Congress, and 
their exchange value fell till twenty paper dollars went to 
one of silver. That was bad enough, but worse followed. 
Early in 1780 Congress made an open confession of bank- 
ruptcy by calling in its “‘continentals”’ at the rate of one 
hard dollar to forty paper dollars. A few months before 
it had described any such measure in advance as that of 
‘‘a bankrupt, faithless Republic.” Multitudes of people, 
including many French merchants, were victims of this 
gigantic swindle. The new currency, of course, went the 


[144 ] 


Governor of Virginia 


way of the old. It was a fraud that could not be repeated. 
Public credit was gone. After this both Congress and the 
States had to rely on other means than the printing of 
paper money. Except for the hard cash of French subsi- 
dies and loans, almost everything required for the war, 
from men and horses to clothing and food, had to be ‘im- 
pressed.” That meant injustice, unequal suffering, dis- 
contents, disorders, and even insurrections. 

The Continental Army in the spring of 1779 numbered 
only about 16,000. Officers and men were alike disheart- 
ened. Washington described his forces as “but little more 
than the skeleton of an army.” In the south the English 
had won successes in Georgia, and in 1779 they overran 
South Carolina, where they found plenty of loyalists to 
join them. A French-American attack on Savannah was 
beaten off, and at the end of the year Clinton embarked 
from New York with 7,000 men for the purpose of con- 
quering the Southern Colonies. After a long and brave 
defence Charleston capitulated in May, 1780, with a gar- 
rison of 5,000 and 400 cannon. Saratoga was avenged. 
All Southern Carolina seemed ready to submit. For a 
time loyalists flocked to the royal standard. But plunder 
following in the wake of victory exasperated the people, 
and converted some of the Tory zealots into rebel Whigs. 
In June Clinton returned to New York, leaving Corn- 
wallis with 4,000 men to subdue North Carolina. Corn- 
wallis was a dashing general, but his methods were the 
methods of barbarism. Resistance gathered strength. 
Washington despatched Baron de Kalb, a good soldier, 
with 2,000 regulars from the Continental army to assist 
Gates, the not very competent victor of Saratoga, to 
whom Congress had assigned the Chief Command in the 
South. That general soon had at his disposal, thanks to 


[145 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


the efforts of Washington and Jefferson, a force of regu- 
lars and militiamen which outnumbered Cornwallis. The 
two armies met at Camden on August 16, 1780. A 
panic seized the Virginian militia, and the whole American 
army was routed. It looked as if Cornwallis, with both 
the Carolinas at his feet, could now march on to conquer ~ 
Virginia. But the tide again turned. Many of the dis- 
persed soldiers were rallied. Gates was succeeded by 
Nathanael Greene, a brilliant general. 

The official correspondence between Jefferson, Washing- 
ton, Steuben, Gates, and Greene affords sufficient proof of 
the tireless energy with which Jefferson was directing a 
stream of men, horses, food, and munitions to the Southern 
army in the critical months that followed the rout of 
Gates at Camden. Greene’s biographer, Johnson, has done 
justice to Jefferson. “‘Never,”’ he writes, “did an officer of 
the United States experience more cordial and zealous 
support than that which Greene at this time received from 
Governor Jefferson. . . . Every requisition of the Com- 
manding General was promptly complied with, the Militia 
of the neighbouring counties ordered into the field, and 
several active and spirited measures pursued for replenish- 
ing Washington’s corps of horse.” If Greene had been 
imbued with an equally generous spirit, he would not have 
desisted from the pursuit of Cornwallis, leaving Virginia 
to be invaded and devastated in order to pursue the easier 
task of reconquering Southern Carolina and Georgia. 

But we are anticipating. In the winter of 1780-1781 
Washington was still waiting for French aid. He was too 
weak to attack New York, and the English garrison was 
too weak to engage him. In December, 1780, Alexander 
Hamilton wrote despairingly from his winter quarters in 
Morristown: “TI find our prospects are infinitely worse 


[ 146 | 





STATUE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON IN THE JEFFERSON HoTEL, RIcHMOND 





Governor of Virginia 


than they have been at any period of the war.” He saw 
starving troops, empty magazines, and a total want of 
money or credit to replenish them; he even anticipated 
“‘a dissolution of the army for want of subsistence.”” And 
he was not far wrong; for in 1781 there broke out — to 
quote John Marshall’s Life of Washington — “‘an open and 
almost universal revolt of the line.”’ A dissolution of 
Washington’s whole army was only avoided by a discharge 
of the Pennsylvania troops. Unpaid, half starved and 
half clothed, the American soldiers everywhere were in ' 
miserable plight. Lafayette, we know, could only supply 
his own men with shoes and shirts by pledging his private 
fortune. “Scarce any State in the Union,” wrote Wash- 
ington in May, 1781, the last month of Jefferson’s Govern- 
orship, “‘has at this hour an eighth part of its quota in the 
field.”” Yet Jefferson’s latest critic, Dr. Eckenrode, com- 
plains that the British invasions found Virginia “‘unpre- 
pared.”” The Governor, he suggests, should before this 
have collected — by force I suppose, because there was 
no other way — “‘tobacco, flour and beef”’ and shipped it 
to France in payment for arms; as if he had ships, as if the 
British Navy were non-existent, as if he were Commander- 
in-Chief, and as if he had not been despatching all the 
food, clothing, waggons, munitions, etc., he could collect 
in loyal response to Washington’s commands and the en- 
treaties of Gates or Greene to supply the Southern armies 
which were holding back Cornwallis. These frantic efforts 
to build up a case against Jefferson all endin nothing. The 
mountain labours, and only mice emerge. 

All through the winter of 1780-1781 discontent and dis- 
illusionment prevailed through the length and breadth of 
the Union. It looked as if Lord North’s overtures should 
have been accepted two years before; nor did the clouds 


[ 147 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


lift until Cornwallis retreated before Lafayette and a 
great French fleet under Admiral De Grasse with six 
thousand soldiers put in to the Chesapeake at the end of 
August, 1781, too late indeed to save Virginia from in- 
vasion or Jefferson from the mortification of seeing his 
countryside laid waste, but in time to strike a final blow. 
On Oct. 19, the army of Cornwallis, which had invaded 
and terrorized Virginia, surrendered at Yorktown, and the 
War of Independence was practically over four months 
after Jefferson’s retirement from the Governorship. 


But what of affairs in Virginia, and of Jefferson, who in 
the absence of Washington was the leading figure in the 
State, first as reformer, then as Governor and civil admin- 
istrator ? We have seen what he accomplished as reformer. 
Of his conduct as Governor we have ample evidence not 
only in the pages of Randall, most veracious and pains- 
taking of biographers, but in Jefferson’s correspondence 
which during the period of his Governorship — from 
June, 1779 to June, 1781 — was mainly official. He was 
overwhelmed with work. Of his energy, of his desperate 
difficulties, of the administrative ability and courage which 
he displayed throughout, of his long-suffering patience and 
consideration for others, only those who have read his let- 
ters and read them carefully can judge. Certainly in the 
reproaches cast upon him there is no sign that his critics 
have performed this task — an essential condition surely 
before any jury of honest men can pronounce verdict. 
It is true that, until the memorial edition printed for 
the first time in 1907 a number of Jefferson’s letters to 
governors, generals, and subordinate officials from the 
collection in the Virginia State library, the volume 
and character of his work was not wholly known. But 


[ 148 ] 


Governor of Virginia 


there never was any excuse for the charges made against 
him. 

For several months after taking office Jefferson resided 
at Williamsburg, occupying the palace long inhabited by 
British viceroys, where as an undergraduate he had fiddled 
in Fauquier’s amateur orchestra. Early in 1780 the seat 
of government was removed on his initiative to Rich- 
mond as being more salubrious, more central, and less 
exposed to the enemy, who, in virtue of their naval 
supremacy, commanded all the coasts and navigable 
rivers. 

At first, the Collier raid being over, the Governor’s 
chief difficulties were financial. He at once set about 
measures for increasing taxation and selling land. By 
these means he hoped “to co-operate with our sister 
States in reducing the enormous sums of money in circu- 
lation. Every other remedy is nonsensical quackery.” 
Already in this first month of his administration (June, 
1779) he had penetrated the mystery of inconvertible 
paper money, which baffled so many statesmen and 
pseudo-economists in his day and has baflled so many 
more since. He saw that resort to the printing press for 
money is a device which destroys the revenue it is meant 
to provide and ends by ruining public and private credit. 
What was to be done, he asked: ‘‘Taxation is become 
of no account; for it is foreseen that, notwithstanding 
its increased amount, there will still be a greater defi- 
ciency than ever. I own I see no assured hope but in 
peace, or a plentiful loan of hard money.”’ 

Indian warfare on the western frontier of Virginia gave 
the Governor constant anxiety. On the British side Ham- 
ilton, military Governor of Detroit, who had great influ- 
ence over the tribes and no scruples in promoting savage 


[ 149 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


warfare, had been a most active and dangerous foe; but 
luckily for Jefferson, Colonel George Rogers Clark, in the 
spring of 1779, by a wonderful march of sixteen days 
through what is now Illinois, surprised Hamilton and cap- 
tured him in the fort of Vincennes. Clark proposed to 
follow up his success by an expedition against Detroit, 
which he thought might put an end to the Indian war. 
Jefferson embraced the project, but it was long before he 
could persuade Washington to grant the needful aids. 
Clark was called the ‘‘Hannibal of the West” by John 
Randolph of Roanoke, because ‘“‘the march of that great 
man and his brave companions in arms across the drowned 
lands of the Wabash does not shrink from a comparison 
with the passage of the Thrasymene Marsh.”’ Hamilton, 
who had offered rewards for scalps but none for prisoners, 
was put in irons by Jefferson’s orders — a just requital 
for the barbarities practised by his Indian auxiliaries 
against frontier farmers. It is pleasant to add that, when 
the British and German prisoners taken at Saratoga were 
removed to a camp near Monticello, Jefferson exerted him- 
self in every way to provide for their health and comfort. 
Among his letters is one to Patrick Henry, then Governor 
of Virginia, urging that these captive enemies should be 
treated with the utmost generosity, and that everything 
possible should be done to mitigate the horrors of war. A 
certain incompetent commissary had stated that the 
camp ought to be shifted because it was badly situated for 
provisions. After putting the official’s commercial geog- 
raphy right Jefferson observed with unusual severity: 
“if the troops could be fed on long letters, I believe the 
gentleman at the head of that department in this country 
would be the best commissary on earth.” 

The harvest of 1779 was a bad one in Virginia. Disaffec- 


[150] 


Governor of Virginia 


tion followed distress, and both were aggravated as time 
went on by the impressment of men, horses, and provisions 
for the northern and southern armies. In November, 
Jefferson described his difficulties to Washington, and 
wrote to the French minister, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, 
suggesting (but in vain) that the French fleet should win- 
ter in York river in order to protect the Virginian coast. 
His letters to Washington and indeed to all the generals 
and governors with whom he was communicating are very 
clear and businesslike. In April, 1780, he explains to the 
Commander-in-Chief the state of recruiting; in June he 
complains of the defective communication between north 
and south: “though Charlestown has been in the 
hands of the enemy a month, we hear nothing of their 
movements which can be relied on.” He was establishing 
a line of expresses, by which he hoped to get intelligence 
from the south at the rate of 120 miles in 24 hours. “I 
wish it were possible that a like speedy line of communica- 
tion could be formed from hence to your Excellency’s 
headquarters.” He seems to have been more alive than 
the military men to the importance of rapid intelligence; 
and often asks why responsible officers fail to communi- 
cate their own movements and those of the enemy — 
though each was ready enough to complain if as a result 
of his own or another’s remissness he did not get all he 
wanted from the civil authorities. 

All through the summer and autumn of 1780, and indeed 
right on to the spring of 1781, Jefferson was making tre- 
mendous exertions to assist the armies in North Carolina. 
In June, 1780, he tells Washington: “all the waggons 
we can collect have been furnished to the Marquis de Kalb 
and are assembled for the march of 2,500 men under Gen- 
eral Stevens of Culpeper.” He has written to Congress 


[151] 


Thomas Jefferson 


for cartridge paper and other munitions. The want of 
money, which cramped every effort, was being supplied by 
force (i.e. impressment), “the most unpalatable of all 
substitutes.” If arms could be furnished from the North 
he thought that Virginia and North Carolina could em- — 
body immediately from ten to fifteen thousand militia. 

All this time Washington was perplexed by the rival 
claims of North and South. Which theatre of war de- 
served most attention? On this question Jefferson wrote 
him a most sympathetic letter in July. Now that Clinton 
had returned from Charleston to the North, Jefferson was 
willing that Virginia should contribute to the Northern 
army if Washington should so decide. Then, as always, he 
was ready to place the general interests of the Union in its 
campaign for independence above the comfort, convenience, 
and even the security of Virginia. But he felt that Con- 
gress was too much inclined to divert money, men, and 
stores to the North. All the moneys from Maryland 
southwards — so he wrote to James Madison (Richmond, 
July 26, 1780) —should be given to the southern military- 
chest. “It could not be expected that North Carolina, 
which contains but a tenth of the American militia, 
should be left to support the southern war alone.”’ His- 
tory confirms this judgment; for from that time onwards 
the decisive events of the war occurred in the South. The 
rout of Gates at Camden on August 16, 1780, was a bitter 
disappointment to poor Jefferson, who had toiled so hard 
to furnish Gates with men, food, and equipment. Yet he 
wasted no time in vain regrets or reproaches, but set to 
work at once with all energy to repair the disaster, and 
wrote to tell Washington (September 3), ‘‘as I know the 
anxiety you must have felt since the late misfortune to the 
South,” that the fugitives were being rallied and that an- 


[152] 


Governor of Virginia 


other army was being collected which would soon number 
8,000 men. At the same time he was calling out 2,000 
militia; but they were unarmed. ‘‘Almost the whole 
small arms seem to have been lost in the late rout,” and 
only 3,000 stand of arms were left in the Virginian maga- 
zine. He had written pressingly to Congress, lest in case 
of another disaster Virginia might be left without means 
of resistance. At the same time he despatched words of 
cheer to General Stevens, who had commanded the mili- 
tia: — “Instead of considering what is past we are to 
look forward and prepare for the future. . . . We shall 
exert every nerve to assist you in every way in our power.” 
He advised Stevens to courtmartial all the Virginian run- 
aways and ‘“‘make them soldiers for eight months.” It 
was reported that four hundred wagons and teams, in- 
cluding two of Jefferson’s, had been lost at Camden. 
There was not a shilling in the Treasury; but “we have 
ordered an active quartermaster to go to the west and en- 
deavour to purchase or impress 100 wagons and teams.” 
It seems odd that at this late stage of the war Washing- 
ton’s generals in the South should have been unprovided 
with maps. In September, Jefferson was being asked by 
Gates to supply not only boats, wagons, arms, tents, 
militiamen, and beeves, but also maps of Virginia.! 

A few weeks later General Nathaniel Greene passed 
through Virginia on his way to supersede Gates. Greene 
was just as exigent as Gates, and Jefferson was just as 
zealous in stripping Virginia of everything available for 
his support. During the summer, he told Washington, 
Virginia had sent 7,000 stand of arms southward; and 


1Just before his retirement Gates received from Jefferson a map of Virginia 
with newspapers “in which you will find a detail of (Benedict) Arnold’s apos- 
tasy and villainy.” 


[153 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


7,000 regulars and militiamen had been ordered into the 
southern service. But as only 3,000 could be armed, he 
naturally pressed headquarters to replenish the Virginia 
magazine and furnish transportation to enable him to 
supply the southern army with provisions. At the same 
time he again urged that the French fleet should winter 
in the Chesapeake, where indeed its presence might have 
afforded invaluable protection against the coming raids. 

We now come to the British raids on Virginia, which fur- 
nished Jefferson’s enemies then and afterwards with the 
oft-repeated charge that he failed to protect his own state. 

On October 22, 1780, information reached Richmond 
that a British fleet of about sixty sail had arrived, and was 
disembarking light horse at Portsmouth. In a letter of 
the same day communicating the bad news to Washing- 
ton, we have a taste of Jefferson’s spirit : — 

“We are endeavouring to collect as large a body to oppose them as 
we can arm: this will be lamentably inadequate, if the enemy be in 
any force. It is mortifying to suppose that a people, able and zealous 
to contend with their enemy, should be reduced to fold their arms for 
want of means of defence. Yet no resources, that we know of, insure 
us against this event. It has become necessary to divert to this new 
object a considerable part of the aids we had destined for General 
Gates. We are still, however, sensible of the necessity of supporting 
him, and have left that part of the country nearest him uncalled on, 
at present, that they may reinforce him as soon as arms can be received. 
We have called to the command of our forces Generals Weeden and 
Muhlenberg of the line, and Nelson and Stevens of the militia. You 
will be pleased to make to these such additions as you may think proper. 
As to the aids of men, I ask for none, knowing that if the late detach- 
ment of the enemy shall have left it safe for you to spare aids of that 
kind, you will not await my application. Of the troops we shall raise, 
there is not a single man who ever saw the face of the enemy.” 


Critics have questioned Jefferson’s statement that it 
was impossible for him to ensure Virginia against an attack 


[154 | 


Governor of Virginia 


in force. Yet his opinion was shared by Washington, him- 
self a Virginian landowner and surveyor; and it was an 
essential part of Washington’s policy that all his good 
troops should operate either in the South or in the North, 
and that Virginia, instead of trying to protect itself against 
raids from the sea, should devote all its resources to the 
northern and southern campaigns. This first raid under 
General Leslie only lasted about a fortnight; but it 
proved, if further proof were required, that the British, 
so long as they retained command of the seas, could land 
at any point on the coast and could for a time do what they 
liked in the absence of any strong force of regulars in Vir- 
ginia. Jefferson always had with him one or more of 
Washington’s Generals, besides Nelson (his successor in 
the Governorship) to whom he had entrusted the com- 
mand of the local militia. In these generals he confided. 
They were his military advisers. He kept in constant 
touch with them, giving them every possible encourage- 
ment; and | have seen no indication that any one of them 
made any suggestion for the defence of Virginia which 
was not attempted or carried out. Three Generals — 
Steuben, Muhlenberg, and Nelson — were all on the spot 
during these raids. They were the commanding officers 
responsible for organising all the resistance that was pos- 
sible; for driving back the invaders, or for failing to drive 
them back. It is true that until Lafayette arrived in the 
summer of 1781 with a few regular troops — too few and 
too late to save Richmond from Cornwallis, or Charlottes- 
ville from Tarleton — no effective resistance was made to 
the British commanders who successively raided and dev- 
astated Virginia. But if it 1s necessary to explain the 
misfortunes of Virginia in 1781 by the incompetence of 
Jefferson, what are we to say of Washington, under whose 


[155] 


Thomas Jefferson 


instructions he acted, or of Steuben, Muhlenberg, and Nel- 
son, to whom Washington and Jefferson had entrusted the 
military defence of the state? If the military policy was 
wrong, the responsibility was Washington’s; if its execu- 
tion was wrong, the chief responsibility lay upon Steuben, 
Muhlenberg, and Nelson. There is ample and over- 
whelming testimony that Jefferson co-operated zealously 
with them from first to last, and not a scrap of evidence 
that he ever failed them. We may assert without any 
shadow of doubt that the Governor and Council and legis- 
lature of Virginia, acting with and on the advice of its 
military authorities, made every practicable effort (sub- 
ject to the dispositions, instructions, advice, and requisi- 
tions of Washington, Gates, and Greene) to raise, disci- 
pline, and equip troops for the defence of Virginia. To 
embody militiamen without arms would have been a work 
of stupid supererogation. Indeed, by the autumn of 1780 
the government of Virginia had gone so far in drafting men 
and impressing horses, wagons, etc., that the people of 
Virginia, who at the outset of the war had been singularly 
free from Tory loyalism, were becoming dangerously dis- 
affected. At the end of October, 1780, in view of the risk 
of invasion, Jefferson decided to remove the Saratoga pris- 
oners of war from Albemarle county, not only because he 
saw risks of desertion but also because, as he put it, of 
“the extensive disaffection which has of late been dis- 
covered and the total lack of arms in the hands of our 
good people.’ An insurrection in Montgomery county 
had been so roughly suppressed by Colonel Charles Lynch, 
Superintendent of the lead mines, that in October it was 
thought necessary by the Virginia Assembly to pass a 
special act of immunity. The Colonel’s name has been 
immortalised, if we are to accept the view that “lynch 


[156] 


Governor of Virginia 


law”’ is derived from his methods on that occasion. Evi- 
dence of the disaffection has been collected in Dr. Ecken- 
rode’s book on the Revolution in Virginia. The miseries 
of compulsory service, the curse of paper money, and the 
increasing impressment of horses and other supplies all 
contributed to diminish enthusiasm for the Republican 
cause and to revive regrets for the good old days when 
Virginia was loyal, peaceful, and prosperous. 

Official returns show that Virginia contributed more 
during the first year of Jefferson’s administration to “‘con- 
tinental’’ expenses and requisitions than Congress had 
demanded. In 1780 it had 4,500 regulars in the field and 
5,500 militiamen in continental service, of whom only a 
handful were left in Virginia to guard the Convention 
prisoners at Charlottesville. Indeed the people’s com- 
plaint against their governor at this time was not that he 
had done too little for the war but that he had done too 
much, and that the sacrifices he was exacting were too 
heavy. Some of the impressment officers employed rough- 
and-ready methods which gave much offence; and in the 
following spring Jefferson had to warn General Greene 
more than once about the misconduct of agents who had 
been entrusted with the execution of impress warrants for 
taking horses in Virginia. To take a horse from a Virgin- 
ian was a delicate and dangerous operation — more dan- 
gerous if not more difficult than the proverbial one of 
robbing a Highlander of his breeks. 

Virginia’s hour of trial and suffering began at the end of 
December, 1780. On the 15th of that month Jefferson 
wrote to inform Washington of a dangerous forward move- 
ment by the British and Indians on the western frontier 
from Fort Detroit. Virginia could afford to wait no longer, 
and they were preparing to launch the expedition under 


[157] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Colonel Clark which had been so long under contemplation. 
At the same time he pointed out the danger from the Brit- 
ish Army in the South and the inadequacy of the forces in 
Virginia, which left no hope of effectual resistance. It was 
to be expected, he added, “that the scene of war will either 
be within our country or very nearly advanced to it, and 
that our principal dependence will be our militia.” He 
was busily fulfilling the requisitions of General Greene, 
who had just passed through Virginia to take up the com- 
mand in North Carolina. 

A few days later Jefferson received a circular letter from 
General Washington (dated December 9, 1780) to the 
Governors of the Southern States, saying that an expedi- 
tion was supposed to be preparing at New York and that 
it was supposed to be destined for the southward. Wash- 
ington does not seem to have thought much of the report, 
or to have had any particular anxiety about Virginia; for 
in a letter written at the same time to Steuben he men- 
tions the report quite casually, adding that the enemy’s 
destination was “‘conjectured to be southward.” He does 
not suggest that Steuben should make any special prepara- 
tions. Probably he thought that an expedition, if it went 
anywhere, would go to Charleston to support Cornwallis, 
whose vanguard had suffered a sharp reverse in October 
at the battle of King’s Mountain, and was about to 
suffer another at Cowpens.!. However, on December 30 a 
British fleet of twenty-seven sail, bearing the traitor Ar- 
nold with a picked force of over 1,600 men, was sighted off 
the Capes of Virginia. The news reached Jefferson next 
day. He immediately informed General Steuben, and 
despatched General Nelson to the lower country with full 
powers. Nelson, it should be added, at the request of the 

1 January 17, 1781. 


[158 ] 


Governor of Virginia 


executive in the previous summer had concerted with the 
county lieutenants in Lower Virginia what measures 
should be taken when invasion threatened. Nelson failed 
to keep Jefferson informed. The legislature was in session 
at Richmond; but no more was heard until January 2, 
when a messenger brought the news that it was an enemy 
fleet and was moving up the James river. Thus two 
precious days were lost. Thereupon, advised by Steuben, 
Jefferson called up 4,700 militia. The members of the 
legislature adjourned and scattered to their homes. Ar- 
nold had embarked his force of regulars in light vessels 
which, aided by wind and tide, were ascending the river 
almost as fast as express messengers could ride. On Jan- 
uary 3 Jefferson learned that Arnold was anchored off 
Jamestown, as if to attack Williamsburg; but at 5 a.m. 
on the 4th, news came that the enemy was at Kennon’s, 
which meant a raid on either Petersburg or Richmond. 
The whole militia of the adjacent counties were then or- 
dered out. At Hoods the British vessels were fired on; 
but a force landed and drove off the garrison. On the 
afternoon of January 5 the enemy disembarked at West- 
over and made for Richmond. Meanwhile Jefferson and 
Steuben had been removing public stores from the village 
capital. Jefferson worked without intermission. After 
sending his wife and three children to a place of safety on 
the morning of the sixth he galloped to Manchester oppo- 
site Richmond. His horseon the way fell dead with fatigue. 
Mounting another he reached Manchester and saw the 
enemy in Richmond on the opposite bank of the James. 
Arnold had marched from Westover on the fourth, arriving 
at Richmond about noon on the fifth, where Steuben, un- 
certain until the last moment of the enemy’s destination, 
had only scraped together about 200 militiamen, who of 


[159] 


Thomas Jefferson 


course could offer no opposition. From Richmond Arnold 
sent Colonel Simcoe to destroy the public foundry and 
laboratory at Westham, and other property. Jefferson 
rode to Chetwood and joined Steuben in the evening. 
Next day (January 6), Arnold, after burning some public 
and private property in Richmond and seizing such stores 
of tobacco and provisions as he could carry away, com- 
menced his retreat and was at Westover on the seventh. 
A couple of thousand militiamen or more were now as- 
sembling from various quarters in pursuit; but the wind 
veering suddenly from west to east, Arnold got clear 
away with trifling loss. Jefferson crossed from Manchester 
to Richmond on the morning of the eighth and resumed 
his official work, after spending the greater part of four 
days in the saddle. 

So ended Arnold’s raid. The traitor, a very competent 
commander, had done a good deal of damage in a very 
short time, and had got back to his base at Portsmouth 
unscathed. He had insulted the pride of the Virginians, 
and had done something to interrupt supplies and rein- 
forcements for General Greene. 

Let us now examine very briefly the charge that 
on this occasion Governor Jefferson ‘“‘permitted”’ Vir- 
ginia to be invaded and its capital to be occupied. No- 
body by the way has complained that the Governors of 
North and South Carolina extended over and over again 
similar “permissions” to the British forces, or that the 
Governors of most of the northern states had done the 
same. But Colonel Henry Lee, known as ‘‘Legion Harry,” 
who fought in North Carolina with conspicuous gallantry 
and less admirable ferocity, seems to have had a personal 
grudge against Jefferson, and chose to blame the Governor 
for not defending Virginia against Arnold. In his ““Mem- 

[ 160 ] 


Governor of Virginia 


oirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United 
States’’ Lee declares that Jefferson should have erected 
forts and floating batteries on the navigable rivers and 
that he should have maintained a “legionary corps,” 
which “‘under a soldier of genius would have been amply 
sufficient to preserve the State from insult and injuries.” ! 
If Jefferson had been Aladdin, he might with the help of 
the Wonderful Lamp have produced the forts and the 
floating batteries (or even a navy, which would have been 
better still) and the legionary corps, and above all the sol- 
dier of genius. But as he was only a civil Governor, with no 
magical powers, without regular soldiers or arms to man 
the forts, or the means of constructing them, we can hardly 
blame him. Besides, if a fine corps of well-trained cavalry 
and infantry could have been raised, it would certainly 
have been sent by Washington and Steuben to the North 
Carolina frontier to help in driving back Cornwallis. We 
must remember that in spite of several checks Cornwallis 
with his small regular army had pursued Greene, a fine 
soldier, 200 miles across the Dan into Virginia, and that 
on March 15 he drove Greene’s army (double the strength 
of his own and strongly posted) out of its positions. Yet 
his army was not very much larger than Arnold’s! We 
must remember, too, that at the Battle of Guildford Court 
House, the costly victory which proved to be a defeat for 
Cornwallis, Greene’s army was mainly composed of Vir- 
ginian regulars and militiamen. On receiving Greene’s 
despatches, Washington wrote, April 18: ‘I am much 
pleased to find by your letter that the State of Virginia 
exerts itself to your satisfaction.” 

Next let us see what Washington thought about the 
Arnold raid. Did he blame Jefferson and Steuben and 

1 See Lee’s ‘Memoirs,’ p. 194 sqq. 


[ 161 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Nelson for reinforcing Greene against a certain and formi- 
dable foe rather than making preparations against a raid 
which might or might not take place at any time at any 
point on the coast? On February 6, 1781, Washington 
wrote to Jefferson about Arnold’s raid: “It is mortify- _ 
ing to see so inconsiderable a party 1 committing extensive 
depredations with impunity; but, considering the situa- 
tion of your State, it is matter of wonder that you have 
hitherto suffered so little molestation. I am apprehensive 
you will experience more in future; nor should I be sur- 
prised if the enemy were to establish a post in Virginia till 
the season for opening the campaign here.” Cold comfort, 
but there was still colder to come; for the Commander-in- 
Chief proceeds to tell the Governor of Virginia that the 
true strategy consists in ignoring raids and in continuing 
to concentrate on the main task of driving back the enemy 
in Carolina. There is no mistaking the instructions : — 


“But as the evils you have to apprehend from these predatory incur- 
sions are not to be compared to the injury of the common cause, and 
with the danger to your State in particular, from the conquest of the 
States to the southward of you, I am persuaded the attention to your 
immediate safety will not divert you from the measures intended to 
reinforce the Southern army and put it in a condition to stop the prog- 
ress of the enemy in that quarter. The late accession of force makes 
them very formidable in Carolina, too powerful to be resisted without 
powerful succors from Virginia; and it is certainly her policy, as well 
as the interest of America, to keep the weight of the war at a distance 
from her. There is no doubt that a principal object of Arnold’s opera- 
tions is to make a diversion in favour of Cornwallis, and to remove 
this motive by disappointing the intention will be one of the surest 
ways of removing the enemy.” 


A few days later he instructed Baron Steuben, his com- 
manding officer in Virginia, to do everything in his power 


1 A curious underestimate. 


[ 162 | 


Governor of Virginia 


“to make the defence of the State as little as possible inter- 
fere with an object of so much more importance as the 
danger is so much the greater. From the picture General 
Greene gives of his situation everything is to be appre- 
hended if he is not powerfully supported from Virginia.” 
Whether Washington’s strategy was right, and whether 
he pursued his policy of leaving Virginia at the mercy of 
British raids too long, is open to discussion; but that it 
was Washington’s policy which Jefferson and Steuben so 
loyally pursued in these critical, and for Virginia tragic, 
months is indubitable. Washington of course could not 
have foreseen that Greene would have allowed Cornwallis 
to ‘remove’ by another route to Virginia. It may be 
argued that if Washington had not clung to the idea of 
ending the war by the capture of New York, he might have 
sent a couple of thousand regulars southwards to protect 
Virginia and to ensure victory in the Carolinas. Camden 
for instance might have been a decisive victory instead of 
a disastrous defeat, if the number of De Kalb’s regulars 
had been doubled; or again, Greene might easily have 
been made strong enough to shatter Cornwallis’s army at 
the Battle of Guildford Court House, where even a few 
hundred more continental troops would almost certainly 
have turned the scale. And lastly, if Greene had pursued 
Cornwallis (who had only some 1,400 effectives) after the 
Battle of Guildford, the great invasion (which almost over- 
whelmed Virginia in May, 1781) could hardly have come 
sO near success. 

For some time after the Arnold raid, the Virginian mili- 
tla were just strong enough to contain the small British 
force which remained at Portsmouth. But such was the 
fear of British bayonets that we hear of militiamen shirk- 
ing duty on a report that it was “‘intended to storm the 


[ 163 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


enemy’s works at Portsmouth.” Jefferson’s letters in 
January and February show us that he never flinched or 
flagged. His endeavour, he writes on January 16, “will 
be as far as possible to prevent Arnold’s invasion diverting 
supplies from Greene’s army in the South.”” On February 
2 he informs Governor Nash of North Carolina that 

they are completing the equipment of their remaining 
four or five hundred regulars to send them on to General 
Greene, ‘being determined to permit the body of plun- 
derers in our state to divert as little as possible of our ef- 
fectual aid to the southern quarter.’’ His policy was to 
keep the militia for the defence of Virginia, and forward 
the regulars to Greene. But on February 15, a letter 
from Greene convinced him that militia must be sent as 
well; and on the 18th, hearing of Cornwallis’s pursuit of 
the American army, he tells Steuben that he has ordered 
every man in five adjoining counties “who has a fire-lock, 
or for whom one can be procured, to be embodied and 
marched immediately to join General Greene.”’ All this 
time he was pressing hard for reinforcements and muni- 
tions, writing urgent letters to the Virginia delegates in 
Congress, to the President of that body, and to the Com- 
mander-in-Chief. Twice in February he begged Washington 
for arms andregulars. ‘The fatal want of arms,” he said, 
‘puts it out of our power to bring a greater force into the 
field than will barely suffice to restrain the adventures of 
the pitiful body of men they have at Portsmouth. Should 
any more be added to them, this country will be perfectly 
open to them by land as well as water.”’ This was plain 
speaking enough, and ‘more’ were soon to be ‘added.’ 
“T have been knocking at the door of Congress,” — so he 
wrote five days later, — ‘“‘for aids of all kinds, but es- 
pecially of arms ever since the middle of summer... . 


[ 164 | 


Governor of Virginia 


Justice indeed requires that we should be aided power- 
fully. Yet if they would repay us the arms we have lent 
them, we should give the enemy trouble though aban- 
doned to ourselves.” 

By this time the British authorities had come to 
regard Virginia under Jefferson as the main support 
of the American cause. At any rate Cornwallis wrote 
to Clinton on April 10: “I cannot help expressing 
my wishes that the Chesapeake may become the seat 
of the war, even if necessary at the expense of abandoning 
New York. Until Virginia is in a manner subdued, our 
hold upon the Carolinas must be difficult if not precarious.” 
Only two months before, in planning the campaign of the 
year, Washington held that the capture of New York 
“ought to be preferred to every other object.” But by 
April 4 (rather late) he had come to the conclusion that 
it was his duty to support the Southern states powerfully 
from the north, “or they will be lost.’’ This was after the 
failure of a demonstration by the French fleet against 
Portsmouth. Washington’s change of policy was no doubt 
partly due to Jefferson’s letters. When he decided to 
detach Lafayette with a small force to the South he asked 
him (April 6) to get into touch with Governor Jefferson 
at Richmond, being then under the impression that it 
would be necessary to co-operate with General Greene 
for the defence of Virginia against Phillips, Arnold, and 
Cornwallis. 

The Virginia General Assembly, convened at Richmond 
on March 1,! had to deal with recruiting, impressment, 
and finance. Girardin tells us that apart from impress- 
ment the only resource was paper money. So the treasurer 


1Tt met again at Richmond on May 7 and adjourned hastily to Charlottes- 
ville for the 24th. 
[165 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


was authorised to print twenty million pounds, and five 
millions in bills, to be redeemed in 1792 by an assessment 
on property. At the time of these enactments the depre- 
ciation stood at go paper dollars to one silver dollar. The 
effect of the new issue was such that the rate soon reached 
1,000 to I, and after that the paper money of Virginia 
“became extinct.” On March 21 Clinton detached 
2,000 men under General Phillips for a new invasion of 
Virginia. Hearing of this on March 31, Jefferson at once 
wrote to the President of Congress, full of apprehension 
that Lafayette might, after all, not be despatched to their 
aid. He summed up the situation in a sentence: ‘an 
enemy three thousand strong, not a regular in the state, 
nor arms to put in the hands of the militia.”” Experience, 
we must remember, had proved that militiamen could not 
stand up against British regulars and bayonet charges. 
Experience was again justified. Phillips started up the 
James river, with 2,500 men, drove the militia out of 
Williamsburg, and a few days later drove Steuben out of 
Petersburg. Then with Arnold he proceeded up the river 
against Richmond. But Lafayette, who is the real mili- 
tary hero of this last Virginian stage of the war, hurrying 
forward from Baltimore by forced marches to Richmond, 
had occupied the capital with g00 men on April 29, the 
day before Phillips arrived at Manchester on the other 
side of the river. Richmond was saved for the time; the 
British force retired and dropped down the river. Mean- 
while Cornwallis, leaving Greene to reconquer the Caro- 
linas, was marching unopposed into Virginia by the coast. 
Arriving at Petersburg on May 20, he found Arnold in 
command of the British forces, Phillips having died of 
fever two days before. The British Army was now in 
overwhelming force under a brilliant commander. Halt- 


[ 166 | 


Governor of Virginia 


ing only three days at Petersburg, Cornwallis crossed the 
James at Westover. There he met reinforcements from 
New York under General Leslie, but sent some of them 
back to Portsmouth with Arnold, who soon afterwards 
returned to New York. 

Cornwallis now confidently anticipated a great triumph. 
Lafayette with his little force lay at Wilton. ‘‘The 
boy cannot escape me,” wrote Cornwallis home; and 
set off in hot pursuit with Tarleton’s dragoons. But 
Lafayette was not to be caught. He moved north- 
west towards Fredericksburg, aided by a fine mounted 
corps of Virginian gentry under Colonel Mercer, who 
did good scouting service during this retreat. Skilfully 
eluding pursuit, Lafayette effected a junction with 
General Wayne at the fords of the Rapidan. Cornwallis 
halted on the North Anna in Hanover county. But before 
turning back he had despatched Simcoe southwards to 
destroy arms and stores, and Tarleton westwards to raid 
Charlottesville and Monticello. Steuben with 500 men 
was guarding the stores at the Point of Forks where the 
Rivanna meets the James river. He had removed his 
stores to the mouth of the James, when Simcoe with his 
troop of dragoons arrived on the opposite bank. The river 
was unfordable and the Americans were perfectly secure. 
But the English lit fires in all directions at night, and by 
this venerable ruse the old Prussian veteran, who had 
learned the art of war under Frederick the Great, was per- 
suaded that the whole British Army had arrived. That 
night, in all haste, Steuben decamped, leaving most of the 
stores to be destroyed next morning by Simcoe. Nor did 
the general discover his mistake or halt in this rather ig- 
nominious flight until he and his men were thirty miles 
on the road to North Carolina. 


[ 167 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Tarleton with the other detachment of dragoons rode 
swiftly towards Charlottesville with orders to seize the 
governor and legislators of Virginia. On June 3 he 
halted for three hours at Louisa Court House, captured 
and paroled a few notables, including General Nelson’s 
brother, and burnt a train of wagons carrying clothing to 
Greene’s army. But he just missed his prize. It happened 
that one Jouitte of Charlottesville was at the Cuckoo Tav- 
ern in Louisa, when Tarleton dashed into the village. 
Mounting a fleet horse, as Girardin tells us, Jouitte sped 
by a short cut to Monticello, and so made known the ap- 
proach of the British some hours before their arrival. At 
Monticello several members of the Virginian Assembly, 
including the speakers of the two Houses, were stopping 
with Jefferson. Jouitte brought the news just before sun- 
rise. Jefferson’s guests breakfasted and rode down to 
Charlottesville, where the House, hastily assembled, was 
as hastily adjourned to meet on the 7th west of the Blue 
Ridge at Staunton. As they were dispersing, Tarleton 
rode into Charlottesville. One of their number, General 
Edward Stevens, “‘a proud and fiery son of the Old Domin- 
ion,” so Sir George Trevelyan calls him, instead of draw- 
ing on the dragoons — as Jefferson’s critics would have 
done — preferred to escape quietly in the guise of a farmer. 

On his way to Charlottesville Tarleton had detached a 
party under Captain McLeod to Monticello to kidnap the 
Governor. In spite of Jouitte’s ride they were within an 
ace of success. In that case Jefferson might as a captured 
rebel have paid an involuntary visit to. England before 
the end of the war, instead of visiting it a little later in 
the character of a diplomat. After breakfasting with his 
guests he had despatched his wife and children in a car- 
riage to Enniscorthy, the seat of his friend Coles, some 


| 168 | 


Governor of Virginia 


fourteen miles distant. Then telescope in hand he walked 
up Carter’s Mountain to a rock which afforded a good 
view of Charlottesville. Seeing nothing astir in the little 
town, he thought the alarm must have been premature 
and was starting back to Monticello when he found that 
in kneeling down to level the telescope he had dropped his 
sword. On returning to pick it up he took another look 
through his glass and saw Charlottesville swarming with 
Tarleton’s dragoons. Jefferson then jumped on his horse 
and followed his family to Enniscorthy. McLeod’s men 
came up the hill from the other side five minutes after- 
wards. 
« Two faithful slaves, Martin and Cesar, were depositing 
plate and valuables under the planked floor of the front 
portico. Martin was above, Cesar in the dark hole below. 
Seeing the troopers Martin dropped the plank and left 
Cesar below, where he remained undiscovered and with- 
out food for the next eighteen hours. Martin, as master of 
ceremonies, received the unwelcome visitors and showed 
the Captain through the house, just as a medieval senes- 
chal might have led some robber chieftain over a surren- 
dered castle. When they came to the study, McLeod 
looked round for a few minutes, then locked the door and 
gave the key to Martin. The soldiers took some wine 
from the cellar, but otherwise nothing was touched or in- 
jured. Tarleton, it seems, had left strict orders to that 
effect. This story of the British soldiers’ visit to Monti- 
cello was the delight of Jefferson’s children and grand- 
children, who often heard it from him and from Cesar. 
Martin died soon afterwards; but Cesar, a great fa- 
vourite, lived to a good old age, and the tale, we may be 
sure, lost nothing in the telling. 

After an eighteen-hour stay in Monticello McLeod 


[ 169 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


rejoined Tarleton, and they returned to the main army 
under Cornwallis which was encamped at the Point of 
Forks. Jefferson’s property, Elk Hull, opposite Elk Island 
in the James, lay near by, and the British general occupied 
his house. Jefferson afterwards described the treatment — 
meted out to him there. Cornwallis was a dashing soldier ; 
but alike in the Carolinas and Virginia he pilfered and 
plundered like a leader of banditti. Jefferson’s account 1s 
preserved in a letter to Dr. Gordon, dated Paris, July 16, 
1788. Gordon had asked him for details of his sufferings 
at the hands of Colonel Tarleton. Jefferson answers: 
“T did not suffer by him. On the contrary he behaved 
very genteelly with me.” But Cornwallis, he adds, who 
made Elk Hill his headquarters for ten days, destroyed 
all the growing crops of corn and tobacco, killed or carried 
off all the live stock, and removed thirty slaves, of whom 
twenty-seven died of fever in the British camp. He also 
burnt all Jefferson’s barns and fences. 

The Governor of Virginia was appointed for one year, 
and was eligible for re-election for a period not exceeding 
three years. Jefferson’s second year of office had now 
ended, and he was determined to resign. There was a 
party in the Virginia Assembly which wanted to appoint 
a dictator. This Jefferson would not suffer. Rather than 
that he might have yielded to the pressure of his partisans 
and stood for re-election. But feeling that a military gov- 
ernor might help to re-assure the people, he persuaded his 
friends in the Legislature to support and secure the elec- 
tion of General Nelson, who commanded the militia. As 
it happened the crisis had passed. The worst moment 
of the whole war for Virginia was over. The tide of in- 
vasion was just beginning to recede. Cornwallis had shot 
his bolt, and Lafayette was soon able to pursue, though 


[ 170 ] 





Marquis DE LAFAYETTE 





Governor of Virginia 


cautiously, the retreat of a still formidable, but no longer 
irresistible adversary. 

The letter in which (on May 28) Governor Jefferson 
announced his retirement to General Washington de- 
scribes the overwhelming strength of the invading force 
and its ability to lay waste Virginia. He appeals to Wash- 
ington to come in person and use the talents, so long em- 
ployed in establishing the freedom of kindred states, to 
save his native Virginia. To his own prayer he added 
those of many members of the Legislature. “The pres- 
ence of their beloved countryman” would restore hope 
and confidence. Washington replied from New Windsor 
on June 8. “The progress which the enemy are making 
in Virginia,” he begins, “‘is very alarming, not only to the 
State which is to be invaded but to all the rest.’’ Never- 
theless “‘were it prudent to commit a detail of our plan 
and expectations to paper, I could convince you by a 
variety of reasons that my presence is essential to the op- 
erations which have lately been concerted between the 
French commanders and myself.” 

He was still hoping to expel Clinton from New York, or 
at least to make him recall part of his forces from the 
south; “‘and should we, by a lucky coincidence of cir- 
cumstances, gain a naval superiority, their ruin would be 
inevitable.”” Without the command of the water it would 
be almost impossible to transport his artillery, baggage, 
and stores to Virginia; and even if it could be done, ‘we 
should lose at least one third of our force by desertion, 
sickness, and the heat of the approaching season.” If 
indeed the enemy should evacuate New York and transfer 
the whole war to the southward, Washington would in 
such case “‘follow them at every expense and under every 
difficulty and loss.” But so long as the Allies were inferior 


[171 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


at sea and Clinton remained in New York, he would not 
abandon his long-cherished plan of capturing that city. 
The tribute to Jefferson with which this letter closes may 
justly follow : — 


“Allow me, before I take leave of Your Excellency in your public 
capacity, to express the obligations I am under for the readiness and 
zeal with which you have always forwarded and supported every 
measure which I have had occasion to recommend to you, and to assure 
you that I shall esteem myself honoured by a continuation of your 
friendship and correspondence, should your country permit you to 
remain in a private walk of life.” 


Washington meant what he said. He had every reason 
to be grateful to Jefferson; and when he became Presi- 
dent it was to Jefferson he turned to fill the first office in 
his Cabinet. 

Jefferson’s term of office expired on June 2, 1781, two 
days before McLeod visited Monticello. He retired, as 
Randall tells us, with the respect, good will, and approba- 
tion not only of Washington, but of every Continental 
commander in the South, including Greene, Lafayette, 
and Steuben. The last named, a martinet who had 
learned soldiering under Frederick the Great, was con- 
stantly at loggerheads with the civil functionaries in Vir- 
ginia. He stormed, it is said, in good German and bad 
English against most of the magistrates and county au- 
thorities; but for Jefferson he could hardly have remained 
there as Greene’s drill master and recruiting sergeant. 

Nelson, “the very man whom the crisis needed,” 1 had 
all the luck on his side. Within a few weeks Cornwallis 
was on the defence. Admiral de Grasse arrived, followed 
by Washington; and in four months came the capitula- 
tion of Yorktown. Nelson was an honest, stout-hearted 


+ To quote Sir George Trevelyan. 


[ 1472") 


Governor of Virginia 


patriot, as zealous as Jefferson for his country’s cause, and 
a soldier to boot. The Assembly at Staunton invested 
him with extraordinary powers; but he exceeded them. 
His proceedings were questioned and had to be legalised 
after the surrender of Cornwallis. Before the end of the 
year he resigned the governorship in disgust, and never 
re-appeared in public life. 

Dr. Eckenrode, after laboriously showing that the 
enemy were successful until June and unsuccessful after- 
wards, that under Jefferson Richmond was captured and 
that under Nelson Yorktown capitulated, is sadly puzzled 
and disheartened by the fact that Nelson’s “‘success”’ was 
followed by political eclipse, whereas Jefferson after his 
failure received every honour that the new Republic could 
offer and became the idol of American democracy. 
“Strange,” cries Dr. Eckenrode. But stranger still is his 
explanation. He takes refuge in German philosophy. It 
was the “zeitgeist” that saved our incompetent Jefferson 
from the disastrous consequences of his incompetence. 
The bare possibility that Jefferson was a highly competent 
administrator and that the disasters suffered by Virginia 
were not due to him; or that Washington, Kosciusco, 
Lafayette,! and the other soldiers who knew him as Gov- 
ernor may have more justly estimated Jefferson’s services, 
wisdom, and energy than Dr. Eckenrode, has not occurred 
to that worthy gentleman. 

- Be this as it may, there was, as might have been ex- 
pected, a desire among some members of the Assembly, 
when it met at Staunton on June 7, smarting under 
losses and humiliations, to make a scapegoat of the Gov- 
ernor. Some, who were inclined to despair of the Republic, 


1 Jefferson was the most trusted friend in all America of Kosciusco and 
Lafayette. 


[173 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


talked of electing Patrick Henry, Washington, or Greene 
“Dictator.” In his Notes on Virginia Jefferson says that 
this scheme wanted a few votes only of being passed. In 
order, it seems, to promote a dictatorship, charges were 
thrown out against Jefferson’s conduct as governor, and an 
enquiry was demanded by George Nicholas, a delegate 
from Albemarle, whom Randall describes as “‘a very hon- 
est, but at that time a very young and impulsive man.” 
Rather to the surprise and chagrin of the dictatorship 
group, Jefferson’s friends promptly agreed to the pro- 
posal of Nicholas, and on June 12 a Resolution was 
passed ‘“‘that at the next session of Assembly an inquiry 
be made into the conduct of the executive of this State for 
the last twelve months.”’ Thereupon, finding themselves 
in a minority, the partisans of a dictatorship adopted Jef- 
ferson’s alternative — the election of a military man com- 
bining civil and military functions. 

In the autumn before the Legislature met George 
Nicholas’s colleague in the representation of Albemarle 
county resigned his seat “‘to place Mr. Jefferson on an 
equal ground for meeting the inquiry.” Jefferson accepted, 
as he wrote to Edmund Randolph on September 16, 
“with the single object of answering the charges,’ which 
being accomplished he would at once withdraw. Mean- 
while he had asked and obtained a list of the complaints 
against his administration; and to prevent any delay he 
sent Nicholas the heads of what he would prove in his own 
justification. The complaints consisted of nine objections 
and two queries. The objections and answers have been 
given in full in Randall’s Life of Fefferson, Chapter 9. 
They all deal with the January invasions under Arnold, 
starting with General Washington’s circular letter. They 
touch a number of technical points concerning militia, and 


[174] 


Governor of Virginia 


the dates at which the militia were called out, post riders, 
signals, look outs, heavy artillery, and the garrisoning of 
Portsmouth, Suffolk, and other places. There is nothing 
personal; they are all directed against the action of the 
executive, and there is no hint that Jefferson was not act- 
ing throughout in harmonious co-operation with Steuben, 
Nelson, and his executive, or that the war preparations 
previous to the Arnold raid made by him and them were 
not in accordance with the policy of Washington and with 
the wishes, resolutions, and war laws passed by the Vir- 
ginia Assembly. The ridiculous aspersions cast by pam- 
phleteers, petty historians, and atrabilious critics on Jef- 
ferson’s personal courage, because he did not wait at Mon- 
ticello for Tarleton and die sword in hand on his front door 
steps, are of later manufacture. Indeed, on all occasions of 
a similar kind the members of the Assembly had them- 
selves dispersed with prudent rapidity. Yet from innu- 
merable publications started in the Federalist campaigns 
against Jefferson (and embodied in some subsequent bi- 
ographies and histories) many, who cannot be expected 
to consult the original authorities or to trace the truth 
to its source, have been led to suppose that this so- 
called impeachment of Jefferson was a personal attack 
upon his courage during Cornwallis’s invasion. The hear- 
ing of the inquiry took place on December Ig. Jefferson 
rose and expressed his readiness to answer any charges 
that might be made. No one responded. Jefferson then 
read the objections and queries he had received from 
Nicholas with his own written answers. No discussion 
followed. Thereupon a motion was passed unanimously 
by the House of Delegates expressing public gratitude to 
Thomas Jefferson for his administration. On December 
19 both Houses resolved unanimously, “That the sincere 


[175] 


Thomas Jefferson 


thanks of the General Assembly be given to our former 
Governor, Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, for his impartial, 
upright, and attentive administration whilst in office.” 

Jefferson’s feelings were deeply wounded. It was bad 
enough that his beloved Virginia should have suffered all 
these humiliating disasters and :devastations just before 
the final triumph of American Independence; that these 
miseries should have coincided with his Governorship was 
a bitter thought ; and worst of all was the reflection that 
some of his countrymen had attributed their misfortunes 
to his negligence or incompetence. But mortified as he 
was by the necessity of meeting these unfounded charges, 
he harboured no personal resentment against the young 
member for his own county, George Nicholas, who had 
preferred them. Convinced by further enquiries, and by 
Jefferson’s unanswerable answers, that he had acted 
wrongly and hastily, Nicholas did not appear in person to 
deliver his complaints, but published a frank retraction, 
and afterwards with his two brothers Wilson and Philip 
Nicholas was counted in the circle of Jefferson’s devoted 
friends and supporters. This is worth mentioning perhaps, 
because in the opinion of Mr. Oliver, the author of a recent 
life of Hamilton, Jefferson was “‘vindictive and at times 
ferocious”? — in fact, Mr. Oliver calls him “Jefferson the 
unforgiving.” It is comforting therefore to know that 
Jefferson not only forgave but became a close friend of a 
young neighbour, who had given him so much pain and 
whose action on this occasion if successful might have 
wrecked his public career. 

More than forty years after Jefferson’s acquittal, Henry 
Lee, son of “Legion Harry,” was preparing a second edi- 
tion of his father’s Memoirs, and wrote to Jefferson on the 
subject. Jefferson’s reply (May 15, 1826) goes over the 


[ 176 | 


Governor of Virginia 


ground with characteristic thoroughness, explaining the 
chronology of the invasion and the measures he had taken. 
“Were your father now living,” he writes, “and proposing, 
as you are, to publish a second edition of his Memoirs, I 
am satisfied he would give a very different aspect to the 
pages of that work which respect Arnold’s invasion and 
surprise of Richmond, in the winter of 1780-1. He was 
then I believe in South Carolina, too distant from the 
scene of those transactions to relate them on his own 
knowledge, or even to sift them from the chaff of the 
rumours then afloat, — rumours which vanished soon 
before the real truth, as vapours before the sun, obliter- 
ated by their notoriety from every candid mind, and by 
the voice of the many, who, as actors or spectators, knew 
what had truly passed.”’ As for his administration during 
the war, he added: ‘‘ Without military education my- 
self, instead of jeopardizing the public safety by pretend- 
ing to take its command, of which I knew nothing, I had 
committed it to persons of the art, men who knew how to 
make the best use of it, to Steuben, for instance, to Nelson 
and others possessing that military skill and experience of 
which I had none.” 

The really noble and splendid thing about Jefferson’s 
defence of his conduct as governor — a defence completely 
successful before a jury of his own countrymen, in the 
place where the damage was done, and at a time when the 
wounds were still fresh — a defence which will always be 
completely successful before any impartial tribunal — is 
that he never sought to throw blame upon any one else, 
either on Washington, who had denuded Virginia of its 
forces and left it defenceless in order to feed the war to 
the north and to the south, or on Greene, who after suck- 
ing Virginia dry turned his back on the State in order to 


[177] 


Thomas Jefferson 


re-conquer the Carolinas, or on Steuben, Washington’s 
deputy in Virginia, or on General Nelson to whom its 
militia had been entrusted. But in this last letter on the 
subject, penned less than two months before his death, 
Jefferson permits himself to ask a question which deserves 
repetition : — 


“And is the surprise of an open and unarmed place, although called a 
city and even a capital, so unprecedented as to be a matter of indelible 
reproach? Which of our own capitals during the same war was not in 
possession of the same enemy, not merely by surprise and for a day 
only, but permanently ? That of Georgia? Of South Carolina? North 
Carolina? Pennsylvania? New York? Connecticut? Rhode Island? 
Massachusetts? And if others were not, it was because the enemy saw 
no object in taking possession of them. Add to the list in the late war 
Washington, the metropolis of the Union, covered by a fort, with troops 
and a dense population. And what capital on the continent of Europe 
(St. Petersburg and its regions of ice excepted) did not Bonaparte take 
and hold at his pleasure? Is it then just that Richmond and its authori- 
ties alone should be placed under the reproach of history, because in a 
moment of peculiar denudation of resources, by the coup de main of an 
enemy led on by the hand of fortune directing the winds and weather 
to their wishes, it was surprized and held for twenty-four hours? Or 
strange that that enemy, with such advantages, should be enabled then 
to get off without risking the honours he had achieved by burnings and 
destructions of property peculiar to his principles of warfare? We 
at least may leave these glories to their own trumpet.” 


In case Lee desired more minute details Jefferson asks 
him to turn to Girardin’s History of Virginia. ‘That work 
was written at Milton, within two or three miles of Monti- 
cello; and at the request of the author I communicated 
to him every paper I possessed on the subject, of which he 
has made the use he thought proper for his work. I can 
assure you of the truth of every fact he has drawn from 
these papers, and of the genuineness of such as he has 
taken the trouble of copying.” Jefferson goes on to de- 


[178 ] 


Governor of Virginia 


scribe the papers then at Monticello relating to the period, 
““stitched together in large masses and so tattered and 
tender as not to admit removal further than from their 
shelves to a reading table.’’ He cordially invites Lee to 
visit Monticello and to stay long enough to examine the 
papers at his ease, along with many letters from Generals 
Gates, Greene, Stevens, and others engaged in the South- 
ern and Northern Wars. “All should be laid open to you 
without reserve; for there is not a truth existing which I 
fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.” 

So much for Jefferson’s defence. The fourth volume of 
Burk’s History of Virginia, which contains the continua- 
tion by Skelton Jones and Louis Hue Girardin, is before me 
as I write, thanks to the generosity of a Virginian friend, 
Mr. Stewart Bryan of Richmond, who has most kindly 
lent me this treasure from his valuable Library. It 1s not 
possessed by the British Museum. Most of the copies were 
lost in a storm at sea. The pages particularly referred to 
by Jefferson are 453, 460, and Appendices XI-XV. Chap. 
XVIII, which covers the war in Virginia from Arnold’s 
raid to Cornwallis’s invasion, extends over thirty-seven 
closely printed pages, while the Appendices (including 
extracts from Jefferson’s diary, and from the journals of 
the House of Representatives) are also far too voluminous 
to be analysed in this biography. But since Sir George 
Trevelyan, in his brilliant history of the American Revo- 
lution, has thought fit to censure Jefferson and to praise 
Nelson, relying, I suppose, upon Harry Lee’s Memoirs, the 


following brief extract from Girardin, page 453, may be 
added : — 


“On the 3oth of December (1780) twenty-seven sail of vessels were 
seen entering the capes of Virginia. Of this circumstance the governor 
was informed on the 31st. . . . General Nelson was immediately dis- 


[179 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


patched to the lower country — the militia, the public arms, and stores, 
were placed at his disposal — in short full powers were given him to 
adopt and execute such measures as exigencies might demand. In the 
preceding summer the patriotic and zealous Nelson had been requested 
by the Executive to call together the County Lieutenants of the lower 
parts of the State, and to concert with them the general measures to 
be taken for instant opposition on any invasion, until further resistance 
could be organized by the government. He had done so; and the most 
unbounded confidence was placed in his exertions.” 


Sir George Trevelyan describes Jefferson as one who 
‘could speak and write like few,” but ““made a poor show 
in the character of a War Governor,” and on the very next 
page praises General Thomas Nelson as “‘the very man 
whom the crisis needed.”’ If the crisis needed Nelson, it 
had him, thanks to Jefferson; for Jefferson had selected 
Nelson to make the military preparations for defence long 
before Arnold’s Invasion; and as Jefferson had given Nel- 
son full powers to resist Arnold as soon as his arrival was 
notified, it is hard to see why Jefferson should be blamed 
and Nelson lauded because Benedict Arnold went “un- 
punished and almost unresisted,” and afterwards “Lord 
Cornwallis marched inland with his main army and pushed 
his advanced parties into the heart of Virginia.” 

It is unlucky that this injustice to Jefferson should dis- 
figure even a page of the finest chapters in American his- 
tory ever penned by a great English author. But Sir 
George Trevelyan’s admiration for Washington, Nelson, 
and Greene is in truth a sufficient exculpation of Jefferson, 
who most loyally executed Washington’s plans, appointed 


Nelson to command the militia, and saved Greene from 
Cornwallis.} 


€ 


1 See Sir George Trevelyan’s “George III and Charles Fox,” Vol. II, Chap. 
XXIII, being the last volume of his American Revolution. 


| 180 | 


CHAPTER III 


NOTES ON VIRGINIA. JEFFERSON WRITES A BOOK AND 
ESTABLISHES A CURRENCY 


Blest with a taste exact yet unconfined, 
A knowledge both of books and human kind. 
POPE 


fe two years following his governorship were the 


most unhappy in Jefferson’s life; for he saw his 

wife becoming more and more of an invalid, until 
in September, 1782, as his Memoir tells, “I lost the cher- 
ished companion of my life in whose affections, unabated 
on both sides, I had lived the last ten years of my life in 
unchequered happiness.” How tenderly he watched over 
and nursed her, we know from the family records and from 
a touching note left by Martha, the companion and wit- 
ness of her father’s grief. 

Soon after his release from office, at the end of June, 
1781, Jefferson had a bad fall from his horse, and was laid 
up for some weeks. His account book shows that he paid 
the doctor for two visits the sum of six hundred pounds — 
from which it may be presumed that the pape pound had 
sunk to a penny or less. In the same week three quarts of 
brandy are entered at seventy-one pounds two shillings. 
While thus kept indoors, Jefferson began to write his first 
and last book — a work which was to give him no little 
fame in Europe, and still claims pride of place in the li- 
brary of every Virginian patriot. 


[181 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


The Marquis de Marbois, of the French Legation in 
Philadelphia, seeking information about the different 
states of the American Union, had sent Jefferson a number 
of queries touching Virginia. Jefferson, who had always 
made a practice of jotting down any information he could 
obtain about Virginia, thought this a good opportunity of 
collecting his loose papers, and proceeded to arrange them 
in chapters corresponding with the Frenchman’s questions. 
The task occupied much of his spare time in the last six 
months of 1781, and seems to have been completed in the 
following year. He thought of printing some copies for 
the use of his friends, but found on enquiry that the cost 
would be prohibitive. On arriving in Paris in 1784 he 
found that it could be printed at a quarter of the price 
asked in America, and accordingly two hundred copies 
were struck off, with the title Notes on Virginia. Internal 
evidence alone proves the date of composition. Many 
passages were obviously written before the end of the war. 
It is animated by the politics of the day, and abounds in 
characteristic judgments vigorously expressed not merely 
on Virginia questions but on all things human and divine 
which came into his mind as he wrote. This explains the 
interest it excited. Geographers, philologists, palzeolo- 
gists, lawyers, and politicians all found something to think 
about, or to talk about. No Frenchman knew France as 
Jefferson knew Virginia. On his own country — its com- 
merce, laws, climate, scenery, plants, quadrupeds, bipeds, 
feathered and featherless — his authority was indisput- 
able; and from this vantage ground he could cross swords 
successfully with Buffon, Raynal, and others whose fanci- 
ful speculations on America had passed for scientific cer- 
tainties. To Jefferson’s biographer it is an encyclopedia 
of the author’s interests, studies, experiments, researches, 


[ 182 ] 


Notes on Virginia 


and learning; an unfolding of his mind and character at 
their maturity. Passionate championship of what he be- 
lieved to be right goes with accurate observation and 
zealous search after the truth. Here the man of science 
stands beside the historian, the sociologist, and the states- 
man. On one page he is rebutting Buffon; on another he 
is pleading for the slave; here is examining the theory of 
the deluge, there the principles of education. Elsewhere 
we find him arguing for perfect freedom of trade, and for 
abstention from the wars and armaments of Europe. 
Sometimes a Virginian, sometimes an American, always a 
citizen of the world, he glances with a reformer’s vigilant 
eye at the abuses and oppressions of the old régime, or 
looks forward with the apostolic faith of a crusader to the 
new. 

Beginning with the map of Virginia, our author de- 
scribes its rivers and their commercial value. Geography 
and exploration always fascinated him. He read trav- 
ellers’ books in preference to novels, and found in them 
enough of fiction to exercise and amuse his critical facul- 
ties. A bold rider from his youth upwards Jefferson must 
have seen almost everything in his native state. His de- 
scriptions of the Mississippi and Missouri are drawn from 
Spanish sources, or from traders whom he had often enter- 
tained and interrogated. The Mississippi, he said, “will 
be one of the principal channels of future commerce for 
the country westward of the Alleghany.” He likens its 
floods to those of the Nile. “This river,” he adds, “‘yields 
turtle of a peculiar kind, perch, trout, gar, pike, mullets, 
herrings, carp, spatula-fish of fifty pounds weight, cat-fish 
of one hundred pounds weight, buffalo fish and sturgeon. 
Alligators or crocodiles have been seen as high up as the 
Acansas. It also abounds in herons, cranes, ducks, brant, 


[ 183 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


geese, and swans.” If his geographical and other specula- 
tions sometimes remind us of Herodotus, we must remem- 
ber that a good half of the United States was still unex- 
plored. Though six miles from its mouth the Missouri is 
only a quarter of a mile wide ‘‘yet the Spanish merchants 
at Pancore, or St. Louis, say they go two thousand miles 
up it.”” The Ohio, whose basin at that time constituted a 
quarter of the whole territory of the United States, “is the 
most beautiful river on earth,” he cries in patriotic ecstasy. 

In a succeeding chapter on the mountains of Virginia, he 
pictures ‘‘one of the most stupendous scenes in nature,” 
the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge: — 


“You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up 
the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hun- 
dred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Potomac, in 
quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction, they rush to- 
gether against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea. 
The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion, that 
this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed 
first, that the rivers began to flow afterwards, that in this place, particu- 
larly, they have been dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains, and 
have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley, that continuing to 
rise they have at length broken over at this spot, and have torn the 
mountain down from its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each 
hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their 
disrupture and avulsion from their beds by the most powerful agents 
of nature, corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing which 
Nature gives to the picture, is of a very different character. It is a true 
contrast to the foreground. It is as placid and delightful as that is wild 
and tremendous. For the mountain being cloven asunder she presents 
to your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue horizon, 
at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting you, as it were, 
from the riot and tumult roaring around, to pass through the breach 
and participate of the calm below. Here the eye ultimately composes 
itself; and that way too the road happens actually to lead. You cross 
the Potomac above the junction, pass along its side through the base 


[ 184 ] 


Notes on Virginia 


of the mountain for three miles, its terrible precipices hanging in frag- 
ments over you, and within twenty miles reach Fredericktown, and 
the fine country round that. This scene is worth a voyage across the 
Atlantic.” 


An account of caves and cascades brings us to the Nat- 
ural Bridge “‘most sublime of Nature’s works,” a par- 
donable superlative before the discovery of the Grand 
Cafion of the Colorado River. Jefferson owned land by 
the Bridge and loved to show this eighth wonder of the 
world to his visitors. “‘Though its sides,’’ he writes, “‘are 
provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet 
few men have resolution to walk to them, and look over 
into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and 
feet, creep to the parapet, and peep over it. Looking down 
from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head- 
ache.” But from below the view was sublime: ‘‘so beau- 
tiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were 
up to heaven.” 

A few years later in Paris (December 26, 1786) Jefferson 
still stoutly maintained the superiority of Virginian scen- 
ery to ‘whatever I find on this side of the Atlantic,’ add- 
ing: “I sometimes think of building a little hermitage at 
the Natural Bridge (for it is my property) and of passing 
there part of the year at least.” 

From Virginia’s scenery Jefferson turns to geology and 
gives an account of its clay, its marble quarries, and its 
mines, chiefly lead, iron, and coal. In the Western country, 
he says, there is abundant coal, that of Pittsburg being “‘of 
very superior quality.’’ Only one gold nugget, so far as 
he knew, had been found in the State, on the north side 
of the Rappahannock, and one emerald. But “‘amethysts 
have been frequent, and crystals common.” 

Immense bodies of Schist with impressions of shells near 


[185 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


the eastern foot of the North Mountains recall statements 
that shells had been found on the Andes 15,000 feet above 
sea-level — which ‘‘is considered by many both of the 
learned and unlearned as a proof of an universal deluge.” 
To this view Jefferson offers various scientific objections ; 
and after disposing of several false theories concludes: 
“we must be contented to acknowledge that this great 
phenomenon is as yet unsolved. Ignorance is_pref- 
erable to error: and he is less remote from the truth 
who believes nothing than he who believes what is 
wrong.” 

After discoursing on the hot springs our author passes to 
botany, and catalogues the trees and plants native to Vir- 
ginia. Virginia was rich in vegetables and wild fruits. 
Among the former were Indian millet, oats, peas, hops, 
Jerusalem artichoke; among the latter plums, apples, 
mulberries, persimmon, cherry, sugar maple, various kinds 
of nuts and grapes, strawberries, raspberries, and black- 
berries. Hemp and flax were also natives; but tobacco, 
maize, potatoes, pumpkins, and squashes, though found in 
Virginia by the first English settlers, had probably, he 
thought, been brought from the South by the Indians. 
Jefferson relied much on “‘the Flora Virginica of our great 
botanist Dr. Clayton” published by Gronovius at Leyden 
in 1762. “‘This accurate observer,’ he says, “was a native 
and resident of Virginia where he passed a long life in 
botanical exploration, and is supposed to have enlarged 
the botanical catalogue as much as almost any man who 
has lived.” His own botanical learning was not small. 
How widely he had read may be inferred from a note 
citing Diodorus Siculus and Acosta, the Spanish authority, 
on the question whether maize was known in Europe be- 
fore the discovery of America. 


[ 186 | 


Notes on Virginia 


An elaborate account of Virginian quadrupeds and birds 
is enlivened by a curious controversy with Count de Buf- 
fon, the Abbé Raynal, and other French writers, who had 
advanced the following statements: 

1. That the animals common both to the Old and New 
World are smaller in the latter. 

2. That the anima's peculiar to America are small. 

3. That animals domesticated in both have degenerated 
in America. 

Buffon and his disciples found support for these fancies 
(which they assumed to be facts) by manufacturing 
two hypotheses — one that heat is friendly, and moist- 
ure adverse, to the production of large quadrupeds; the 
other that America is less hot and more humid than 
the Old World. Thereupon, having marked out the 
ground taken by his adversaries, Jefferson proceeds to 
demolish them. No sufficient scientific observations ex- 
isted to decide whether the climate of America was colder 
and more humid than that of Europe. To the supposi- 
tion that moisture is unfriendly to animal growth Jeffer- 
son replies that moisture is favourable to vegetables and 
that vegetables are ‘ mediately or immediately” the food 
of every animal. As for the effects of cold, Buffon himself 
had admitted that some of the coldest countries breed 
some of the largest quadrupeds. 

Jefferson caps his argument with a comparative table 
showing the actual weights, ‘“‘ formulated by judicious per- 
sons,” of American and European quadrupeds. The 
heaviest American quadruped, the buffalo, weighed 1,800 
pounds. Then came the round-horned elk, 450 pounds, 
and the American bear, 410 pounds. Europe had nothing 
better to offer than the red deer, 288 pounds, and the wild 
boar, 280 pounds. 


[ 187 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Buffon had confessed that the American beaver, otter, 
and shrewmouse were larger than the European, and Jef- 
ferson throws in the weasel. The bones of the American 
mammoth, he adds, are as big as those found in the Old 
World; and according to Indian tradition, the mammoth 
or great buffalo still existed in Northern and Western 
America. As those parts “remain in their aboriginal 
state, unexplored and undisturbed by us,” the mammoth 
“may still exist there now, as he did formerly where we 
find his bones.” 

In a letter to Chastellux (June 7, 1785), Jefferson re- 
marked further: “‘As to the degeneracy of the man of 
Europe transplanted to America, it is no part of De Buf- 
fon’s system. He goes indeed with one step of it, but he 
stops there.”’ It was Raynal who had applied Buffon’s 
theory to the case of white men transplanted from Europe. 
“On doit étre étonné,” wrote that foolish savant, “‘que 
Amérique n’ait pas encore produit un bon poéte, un 
habile mathématicien, un homme de génie dans un seul 
art, une seule science.’’ As to poetry, retorted Jefferson, 
in his Notes, if this reproach were still true when the Amer- 
ican people had existed as a people as long as the Greeks 
before they produced their Homer, or the Romans Virgil, 
or the French Racine and Voltaire, or the English Shake- 
speare and Milton, it would then be time enough to inquire 
why no American name had been inscribed on the roll of 
great poets. But in the arts and sciences of war and peace, 
America could already boast of a Washington, a Franklin, 
and a Rittenhouse. The first would triumph over time 
and be remembered by the votaries of liberty when that 
wretched philosophy was forgotten, which would have 
arraigned. him among the degeneracies of nature. Than 
Franklin “no one of the present age has made more im~- 


[ 188] 


Notes on Virginia 


’ 


portant discoveries,” while Rittenhouse had given proof 
of an extraordinary mechanical genius by his model of the 
planetary system. Considering also that France had 
twenty millions of inhabitants, and the British islands 
ten, against the three millions of the United States, Amer- 
ica was contributing its full quota to the genius of the 
age. 

In after years, when conversation turned on this theory 
of American degeneracy, Jefferson loved to retail one of 
Benjamin Franklin’s stories. The Doctor had a party to 
dine with him one day at his house in Passy. Half were 
Americans, half French, and among them the Abbé de 
Raynal. During dinner the Abbé embarked on his fa- 
vourite theory of the degeneracy of animals and even of 
man in America; and enlarged on it with his usual elo- 
quence. Dr. Franklin, noticing the accidental stature of 
his guests, and their position at the table, said: ‘‘Come, 
M. L’Abbé, let us try this question by the fact before us. 
We are here one half Americans and one half French, and 
it happens that the Americans have placed themselves on 
one side of the table, and our French friends on the other. 
Let both parties rise, and we will see on which side nature 
has degenerated.” It happened that his American guests, 
like Franklin, were all big men, and the French all diminu- 
tive, the Abbé himself a mere shrimp. 

Whether in consequence of Franklin’s dinner, or of Jef- 
ferson’s Notes, the Abbé had the grace to withdraw the of- 
fending passage from later editions of his book. 

Though Jefferson had a poor opinion of Raynal, he ad- 
mired Buffon; and so, after demolishing the theory of 
American degeneracy, he paid a handsome tribute to the 
“celebrated zoologist who has added, and is still adding, 
so many precious things to the treasures of science.” 


[ 189 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Jefferson, as we have seen, was from his boyhood deeply 
interested in the Red Indians. Were they really aborig- 
ines? On this problem he offers a conjecture which is now 
adopted by many anthropologists : — 


“The late discoveries of Captain Cook, coasting from Kamschatka 
to California, have proved that if the two continents of Asia and Amer- 
ica be separated at all, it is only by a narrow strait. So that from this 
side also, inhabitants may have passed into America; and the resem- 
blance between the Indians of America and the eastern inhabitants of 
Asia, would induce us to conjecture, that the former are the descend- 
ants of the latter, or the latter of the former.” 


A comparison of languages might settle the question, 
and he laments that so many of the Indian tribes had 
been extinguished before their languages could be collected 
and placed on record. But he evidently thought that the 
Red Men of Asia and America came from a common 
stock. | 

From a critical sketch of the constitution and constitu- 
tional history of Virginia (in answer to Query XIII) one 
or two characteristic sentences may be taken. Speaking 
of Senates and Second Chambers he remarks: “In 
Great Britain it is said their constitution relies on the 
House of Commons for honesty and the Lords for wisdom ; 
which would be a rational reliance if honesty were to be 
bought with money and if wisdom were hereditary.”’ He 
is against concentrating all authority, including executive 
and judicial, in the legislative body. “‘An elective des- 
potism was not the government we fought for.” The 
powers even of an elected assembly should be limited; for 
some day the corruption, which already prevailed in Eng- 
land, would probably invade the American government 
and spread through the body of the people. Human na- 
ture was the same on both sides of the Atlantic. Here 


[ 190 ] 


Notes on Virginia 


Jefferson paused to demolish the magic of the word “‘con- 
stitution.” If a constitutional convention, instead of say- 
ing, ‘We the legislature establish a constitution,” were to 
say, ‘We the legislature establish an act which the legis- 
lature cannot alter,” the fallacy would expose itself. 

Passing from Constitutional problems to the Slavery 
Question, Jefferson, after reciting his own scheme of eman- 
cipation and emigration, proceeds : — 

“Tt will probably be asked, why not retain and incorporate the 
blacks into the State, and thus save the expense of supplying by impor- 
tation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep-rooted 
prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections by 
the blacks of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the 
real distinction which nature has made; and many other circumstances 


will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably 
never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.” 


To these political objections he added physical and 
moral arguments against maintaining a mixed population 
of blacks and whites. 

His opinion of negro character and characteristics is not 
unfavourable. He thought them at least as brave as white 
men, and more adventuresome — perhaps from want of 
foresight, which prevents their seeing a danger till it is 
present. In love they were more ardent, but less delicate 
and sentimental : — 

“Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions which 
render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in 
wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their 
existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To 
this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from 
their diversions, and unemployed in labor. An animal whose body is 
at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep.” 

Comparing the two races in respect of memory, reason, 
and imagination, Jefferson holds that in memory the 


[191 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


blacks are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior. 
One could scarcely be found capable of comprehending 
Euclid. In imagination he found them dull and tasteless. 
It was true that the black race had laboured under many 
drawbacks in Africa and America. But in America many 
had been trained in handicrafts and some had enjoyed a 
liberal education : — 


“The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve 
figures on their pipes not destitute of design or merit. They will crayon 
out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a 
germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you 
with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason 
and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But 
never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the 
level of plain narration; never saw even an elementary trait of painting 
or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites, 
with accurate ears for tune and time; and they have been found capable 
of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the compo- 
sition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony is 
yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting 
touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, 
but no poetry.” 


As for negro writers like Phyllis Whately or Ignatius 
Sancho, the best of their race, they must be enrolled at the 
bottom of the column in competition with white authors. 
That the inferiority of the blacks did not proceed from 
slavery alone was made probable by the experience of the 
Romans. Jefferson quotes Plutarch, Cato, and Suetonius 
to prove that Roman slaves were worse treated than Vir- 
ginian. In spite of that some of the finest artists and phi- 
losophers of Rome were slaves. ‘‘Epictetus, Terence, and 
Pheedrus were slaves. But they were of the race of whites. 
It is not their condition then but nature which has pro- 
duced the distinction.” Nevertheless 


[ 192 ] 


Notes on Virginia 


“Jove fixed it certain that whatever day 
Makes man a slave takes half his worth away.” ! 


The disposition of black slaves to petty theft must be 
attributed to their situation, not to natural depravity. 
“The man in whose favour no laws of property exist prob- 
ably feels himself less bound to respect those made in fa- 
vour of others.”’ Laws to be just must be reciprocal, ‘‘and 
it is a problem which I give to the master to solve whether 
the religious precepts against the violation of property 
were not framed for him as well as the slave.’ Even so, 
Jefferson had found among slaves “‘numerous instances 
of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their 
better instructed masters of benevolence, gratitude, and 
unshaken fidelity.” 

To sum up — and here we have perhaps the best expres- 
sion of Jefferson’s views on negro slaves and slavery : — 


“The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and im- 
agination, must be hazarded with great difidence. To justify a general 
conclusion, requires many observations, even where the subject may be 
submitted to the anatomical knife, to optical glasses, to analysis by fire 
or by solvents. How much more then where it is a faculty, not a sub- 
stance, we are examining; where it eludes the research of all the senses ; 
where the conditions of its existence are various and variously com- 
bined; where the effects of those which are present or absent bid defi- 
ance to calculation; let me add too, as a circumstance of great tender- 
ness, where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the 
rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given 
them. 

To our reproach it must be said that, though for a century and a half 
we have had under our eyes the races of black and red men, they have 
never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance 
it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a 
distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior 
to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not 


1Homer: Odyssey XVII, 323. 
[193 |] 


Thomas Jefferson 


against experience to suppose that different species of the same genus, 
or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. 
Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations 
in all the race of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to 
keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed 
them? This unfortunate difference of color, and perhaps of faculty, is 
a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their 
advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, 
are anxious to preserve its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embar- 
rassed by the question, ‘What further is to be done with them’ join 
themselves in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice 
only. Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The 
slave when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of 
his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. 
When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.” 


It was not Jefferson’s fault that the emancipation of 
slaves did not begin on the day when he entered the As- 
sembly of Virginia. His protest against the slave trade 
was struck out of his draft of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. If his measures had not been rejected, his country- 
men would have been saved, half a century after his death, 
from the cruelties and miseries of the Civil War. 

Jefferson wished slavery abolished for the sake of the 
whites as well as the blacks. 


“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exer- 
cise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism 
on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children 
see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This 
quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave 
he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no 
motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the 
intemperance of his passion towards his slave, it should always be a suf- 
ficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. 
The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, 
puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the 
worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in 


[ 194 | 


Notes on Virginia 


tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The 
man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals unde- 
praved by such circumstances.”’ 


Slavery was injurious to the industry as well as to the 
morals of the white man. “‘For in a warm climate no man 
will labour for himself who can make another labour for 
him.”” Nor could American liberties be secure so long as 
negro slavery was maintained. “Indeed I tremble for my 
country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice 
cannot sleep forever.” 

Jefferson was hopeful that the arguments and consid- 
erations which had convinced him and many of his friends 
were gaining ground : — 


“T think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present 
revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising 
from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under 
the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is dis- 
posed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters, 
rather than by their extirpation.” 


If slavery was in Jefferson’s eyes the chief blot on Vir- 
ginia and on the American people, another danger was 
that American statesmen, misled by the political econo- 
mists of Europe (who had held that every state should man- 
ufacture for itself), might induce the people to congregate 
in great cities by following the European example of pro- 
tecting and encouraging manufactures at the expense of 
agriculture. Jefferson hated “the mobs of great cities.” 
During the war, the colonists, cut off from European com- 
merce, had been manufacturing in their homes the most 
necessary articles of clothing. ‘‘Those of cotton will bear 
some comparison with the same kinds of manufacture in 
Europe”; but those of wool, flax, and hemp were very 
coarse and unsightly. As farming was a healthier and 


[195 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


happier occupation, and as the husbandman was a better 
citizen than the slum dweller, Jefferson hoped that with 
peace his countrymen would resume the exchange of their 
agricultural products for the manufactures of Europe. 

In the Notes on Virginia we find not only a sketch of his 
Bills for educating the people, but an exposition of his 
theory that popular government cannot be either safe or 
efficient unless the people are educated. He held that a 
self-governing democracy must be an educated democ- 
racy, and that liberty as well as justice demands equality 
of opportunity and public encouragement of talent. “We 
hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has 
sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which 
perish without use, if not sought for and cultivated.” 

In associating manhood suffrage with popular educa- 
tion Jefferson was in the vanguard of philosophic radical- 
ism : — 


“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the 
people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe deposi- 
tories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved to a 
certain degree. This indeed is not all that is necessary, though it be es- 
sentially necessary. An amendment to our constitution must here 
come in aid of the public education. The influence over government 
must be shared among all the people. If every individual which composes 
their mass participates of the ultimate authority, the government will 
be safe; because the corrupting the whole mass will exceed any private 
resources of wealth; and public ones cannot be provided but by levies 
on the people. In this case every man would have to pay his own price. 
The government of Great Britain has been corrupted, because but one 
man in ten has a right to vote for members of parliament. The sellers 
of the government, therefore, get nine-tenths of their price clear. It 
has been thought that corruption is restrained by confining the right of 
suffrage to a few of the wealthier of the people; but it would be more 
effectually restrained by an extension of that right to such numbers as 
would bid defiance to the means of corruption.” 


[ 196 ] 


Notes on Virginia 


Jefferson did not forget the Red Indians in his educa- 
tional philanthropy. He suggested that the State should 
appoint a Missionary to the Indians, who could not only 
diffuse Christianity but would also collect their traditions, 
laws, customs, and languages. 

On social and economic conditions in Virginia at the 
close of the war we find some interesting paragraphs. 
There is a brief history of the coins current before the flood 
of paper money. Since then creditors had suffered great 
injustices and legal tender had lost value so rapidly that 
it had become useless even for statistical purposes. “‘We 
find ourselves cheated in every essay by the depreciation 
intervening between the declaration of the tax and its 
actual receipt.” Calculating in hard cash, Jefferson made 
the cost of Government in Virginia work out at about 
two-fifths of a dollar, or twenty-one pence per head, one- 
sixteenth of the cost of Government at that time to an in- 
habitant of Great Britain. A million dollars in addition 
might, he thought, be paid annually by Virginia without 
distress, if need be, to support the Federal army and gov- 
ernment. 

Towards the end of his book Jefferson was led to con- 
sider what should be the course of American policy when 
the revolted colonies had become an independent nation. 
In the first place it should be peaceful. War was “‘de- 
voutly to be deprecated,” and like Cobden he wanted a 
real peace — a peace of free intercourse and free com- 
merce with all the nations of the world : — 


“Young as we are, and with such a country before us to fill with 
people and with happiness, we should point in that direction the whole 
generative force of nature, wasting none of it in efforts of mutual de- 
struction. It should be our endeavour to cultivate the peace and friend- 
ship of every nation, even of that which has injured us the most, when 


[ 197 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


we shall have carried our point against her. Our interest will be to 
throw open the doors of commerce, and to knock off all its shackles, 
giving perfect freedom to all persons for the vent of whatever they may 
choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs. Never 
was so much false arithmetic employed on any subject, as that which 
has been employed to persuade nations that it is their interest to go to 
war. Were the money which it has cost to gain, at the close of a long 
war, a little town, or a little territory, the right to cut wood here, or to 
catch fish there, expended in improving what they already possess, in 
making roads, opening rivers, building ports, improving the arts, 
and finding employment for their idle poor, it would render them 
much stronger, much wealthier and happier. This I hope will be our 
wisdom.” 


If he could have his way there would be no war. But the 
shipping interests might force them one day again to en- 
gage. He could not therefore count on the avoidance of all 
wars. Wise statesmen would avoid that half of them 
which would be produced by our own follies and our own 
acts of injustice; and make for the other half the best 
preparations we can :— 


“Of what nature should these be? A land army would be useless 
for offence, and not the best nor the safest instrument of defence. For 
either of these purposes, the sea is the field on which we should meet 
an European enemy. On that element it is necessary we should possess 
some power. To aim at such a navy as the greater nations of Europe 
possess would be a foolish and wicked waste of the energies of our coun- 
trymen. It would be to pull on our own heads that load of military ex- 
pense which makes the European labourer go supperless to bed, and 
moistens his bread with the sweat of his brows. It will be enough if we 
enable ourselves to prevent insults on the sea, because circumstances 
exist, which render even the stronger ones weak as tous. Providence has 
placed their richest and most defenceless possessions at our door; has 
obliged their most precious commerce to pass, as it were, in review be- 
fore us. To protect this, or to assail, a small part only of their naval 
force will ever be risked across the Atlantic. . . . A small naval force 
then is sufficient for us, and a small one is necessary.” 


[ 198 | 


Notes on Virginia 


After composing this remarkable treatise Jefferson was 
plunged in grief by his wife’s death on September 6, 17821; 
and this disposed him again to welcome an opportunity 
for public service, which would take him away from scenes 
once so dear but now so painful. When he retired from the 
Governorship in June, 1781, he had declined an appoint- 
ment pressed on him by Congress to serve as plenipoten- 
tiary at the peace congress. In the following December he 
refused to serve as a Virginian delegate to Congress. But 
after his wife’s death in 1782, he accepted from Congress a 
mission to Europe to assist Franklin, Jay and Adams in 
negotiations for peace. But his ship was detained by ice 
at Baltimore; and on news arriving that peace prelim- 
inaries had been signed, the mission was suspended. 

In May, 1783, he returned to Monticello, and was almost 
immediately elected with James Monroe and three others 
to Congress. This time he accepted the appointment, 
and took his seat on November 4, 1783. Philadelphia 
was in disorder. Congress, insulted by a mob of soldiers 
whose pay was in arrears, adjourned to Annapolis, and 
there Jefferson worked hard from December, 1783, to May, 
1784. Everything was in chaos, and plenty of work was 
thrown on his shoulders. It fell to him as chairman of a 
currency committee to choose a standard coin for the 
American Union. The Financier Robert Morris and his 
assistant Gouverneur Morris, who were trying to restore 
order at the Treasury, had prepared a report suggesting an 
extension of the decimal system to all weights and meas- 
ures, and anew currency whose unit should bea coin equiv- 


1 She was buried in the graveyard of Monticello. On her tombstone Jefferson 
inscribed the beautiful lines from Achilles’ lament over the dead body of Pa- 
troclus in the 22nd Iliad, lines 389-390. 

é. 5 Oavévrwy rep katadhOorT év’ Atdao 
duTap éya Kal Ket0c plrov weuvjcou’ érdipov. 


[199 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


alent to one fourteen hundred and fortieth of a dollar. 
This report was considered by Jefferson. He approved of 
the decimal system, but saw the practical absurdity of the 
proposed unit. He proposed instead that the Spanish 
dollar should be the unit, with decimal divisions and sub- 
divisions — the smallest coin to be a copper cent, the 
hundredth part of a dollar. Jefferson’s admirable paper 
did not convince the Morrises, but the committee ac- 
cepted his recommendations, and they were adopted in 
the following year. “‘The Almighty Dollar” is therefore 
Jefferson’s creation. Consequently, his “‘Notes on the 
Establishment of a Money Unit, and of a Coinage for the 
United States,” which prevailed over the Morris report, 
constitute an epoch in monetary history, ranking* with 
Sir Isaac Newton’s representation to the Lords of the 
Treasury in 1717 (to which Jefferson refers) or with the 
Bullion Report, which led to the resumption of cash pay- 
ments in England a few years after Waterloo. Jefferson’s 
easy mastery of a complex subject, his wisdom in adapting 
theory to the practical needs and habits of the people, and 
his skill in presenting the case to his fellow legislators must 
excite the admiration of experts and laymen alike. 

“Tn fixing the Unit of Money,” he begins, “these cir- 
cumstances are of principal importance” : — 


That it be of convenient size to be applied as a measure to the com- 
mon money transactions of life. 

That its parts and multiples be in an easy proportion to each other, 
so as to facilitate the money arithmetic. 

That the Unit and its parts, or divisions, be so nearly of the value of 
some of the known coins, as that they may be of easy adoption for the 
people. 

The Spanish Dollar seems to fulfil all these conditions. 

I. Taking into our view all money transactions, great and small, I 
question if a common measure of more convenient size than the Dollar 


[ 200 | 


Notes on Virginia 


could be proposed. The value of 100, 1,000, 10,000 dollars is well esti- 
mated by the mind; sois that of the tenth or the hundredth of a dollar. 
Few transactions are above or below these limits. The expediency of 
attending to the size of the Money Unit will be evident to anyone who 
will consider how inconvenient it would be to a manufacturer or mer- 
chant, if, instead of the yard for measuring cloth, either the inch or the 
mile had been made the Unit of Measure. 

II. The most easy ratio of multiplication and division, is that by 
ten. Everyone knows the facility of Decimal Arithmetic. Everyone 
remembers, that, when learning Money-Arithmetic, he used to be puz- 
zled with adding the farthings, taking out the fours and carrying them 
on; adding the pence, taking out the twelves and carrying them on; 
adding the shillings, taking out the twenties and carrying them on; but 
when he came to the pounds, where he had only tens to carry forward, 
it was easy and free from error. The bulk of mankind are school-boys 
through life. These little perplexities are always great to them. And 
even mathematical heads feel the relief of an easier, substituted for a 
more difficult process. Foreigners, too, who trade or travel among us, 
will find a great facility in understanding our coins and accounts from 
this ratio of subdivision. Those who have had occasion to convert the 
Livres, sols, and deniers of the French; the Gilders, stivers, and frenings 
of the Dutch; the Pounds, shillings, and pence and farthings of these 
several States, into each other, can judge how much they would have 
been aided had their several subdivisions been in a decimal ratio. 
Certainly, in all cases, where we are free to choose between easy 
and difficult modes of operation, it is most rational to choose the 
easy. 


The third condition required was that the money Unit, 
with its multiples and subdivisions, should coincide in 
value with some of the current coins “‘so nearly that the 
people may, by a quick reference in the mind, estimate 
their value. If this be not attended to, they will be very 
long in adopting the innovation, if ever they adopt it.” 
The four coins proposed in his plan for an American cur- 
rency are then put to this test of familiarity. 

1. The golden ten dollar piece would be one-fifth more 


[ 201 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


than a half joe,' and one-fifteenth more than a double 
guinea. 

2. The silver dollar, or Unit of (about) 365 grains of 
silver, was a known coin, the most familiar of all. “It is 
already adopted from South to North; has identified our 
currency, and therefore happily offers itself as a Unit al- 
ready introduced. Our public debt, our requisitions, and 
their apportionments, have given it actual and long pos- 
session of the place of Unit.’”’ As a Unit the pound was 
the dollar’s only competitor, but the pound varied in value 
in different states. In Georgia it contained 1,547 grains 
of fine silver. In Virginia and New England 1,289 grains; 
in New York 9662 grains, and soon; while the pound ster- 
ling then contained 1,718 grains of pure silver. Happily 
the dollar was familiar in all the States and was used to 
measure values no less than the provincial pounds. 

3. Jefferson’s third coin, the tenth of a dollar, was also 
familiar, being in fact the Spanish ‘bit,’ or half pistareen. 

4. The hundredth or cent, a copper coin, would differ 
little in value from the penny of New York, Pennsylvania, 
and other states. In Virginia copper coins had never been 
used; but Jefferson favoured their introduction because, 
as he observed acutely, “‘small change is useful in a State 
and tends to reduce the price of small articles.”” It might 
be well also, he thought, to coin silver half dollars, a bit, 
and a half bit. 

Coming to the interesting question of the ratio be- 
tween gold and silver Jefferson noted that the Span- 
ish ratio was then sixteen to one, the English ratio, 
fifteen and a half to one, and the French fifteen to one, 
the result being that there was more gold coin in Spain 
and England and less in France. Jefferson’s view was, the 


* Joe is short for ‘Johannes,’ a Portuguese and Brazilian gold coin, 
[ 202 | 


Notes on Virginia 


right one, that in fixing a bimetallic ratio they should take 
an average of the market price of gold in various coun- 
tries, though “‘perhaps we might with safety lean to a pro- 
portion somewhat above par for gold.” He inclined to 
favour fifteen to one. In deciding the quantum of alloy 
Jefferson selected the French ratio of one ounce to the 
pound for silver coin and the British ratio of one ounce to 
the pound for gold coin. Subject to an examination by ex- 
perts of the various Spanish and Mexican dollars then in 
circulation he assumed that the dollar unit would be fixed 
at 365 grains of pure silver, that the ratio to gold would be 
fifteen to one, that the alloy in both gold and silver coins 
would be one-twelfth. On these assumptions he fixed the 
weight of all the gold and silver coins in his plan. Such are 
the main features of the scheme on which the American 
monetary system was founded by the scientific genius of 
Jefferson. 


[ 203 | 


BOOK III 


AMERICAN MINISTER IN FRANCE 
CHAPTER TI 


DIPLOMAT AND TRAVELLER 


“Surely travel fulleth the man; he hath lived but locked up in a 
larger chest, which hath never seen but one land.” — FELTHAM 


() May 7, 1784, Congress decided to appoint a Min- 


ister Plenipotentiary to assist Benjamin Franklin 

and John Adams in negotiating Treaties of Com- 
merce with foreign nations. The mission was offered to 
Jefferson. He accepted it, and on the 11th left Annap- 
olis for Philadelphia, where his eldest daughter Martha 
was at school. The two younger ones he left in the care of 
their maternal aunt, Mrs. Eppes; Martha he took with 
him. Travelling by slow stages through New Jersey, New 
York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island he informed himself 
of commercial conditions in those States, then passed 
through Massachusetts to New Hampshire and Vermont, 
and returning to Boston set sail for Europe on July 5 in 
the Ceres, a merchant ship bound to Cowes in the Isle of 
Wight, then a favourite English port. Their voyage, wrote 
Martha at a later date, was as pleasant as fine weather, a 
fine ship, good company, and an excellent table could make 
it. Colonel Tracy, the owner of the vessel, who was one of 
the six passengers, doubtless looked after their creature 


[ 204 ] 





Painted by Duplessis 





Diplomat and Traveller 


comforts. From land to land they were only nineteen 
days, for three of which, becalmed on the banks of New- 
foundland, they spent the time in codfishing. Towards the 
end Martha became very seasick, and Jefferson spent 
a week at Portsmouth to give his little travelling compan- 
ion time to recover before they crossed to Paris. At Paris 
they stopped in the Hotel D’Orléans, in the Rue des 
Petits Augustins, until a house near the Boulevards was 
ready. At the end of the year 1784, Jefferson removed to 
an elegant house with a large garden and outbuildings, 
which stood at the corner of the Rue Neuve de Berry and 
the Grande Route des Champs Elysées. Here, till his re- 
turn home in 1789, he lived with Humphreys, the Secre- 
tary of the Legation, and Short, his private secretary. He 
also had rooms in the Carthusian Monastery on Mount 
Calvary, a quiet hermitage, where silence was enjoined. 
“Whenever he had a press of business,” so his daughter 
wrote, “he was in the habit of taking his papers and going 
to the hermitage, where he spent sometimes a week or 
more till he finished his work. . . . His habits of study in 
Paris were pretty much what they were elsewhere. He was 
always a very early riser, and the whole morning was spent 
in business.”’ He generally wrote till one o’clock, with a 
respite for breakfast, “at which he frequently lingered, 
conversing willingly at such times.’’ At one o’clock he 
rode or took a long walk into the country. On one of these 
rambles, while earnestly engaged in conversation with a 
friend, he stumbled and broke his wrist. It was a compli- 
cated fracture, and the wrist always remained weak and 
stiff. While thus disabled he learned to write with his left 
hand, but lost its use a few years before his death by an- 
other fall. Martha Jefferson says that she stayed with her 
father till he sent her to a convent in Paris, “where his 


[ 205 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


visits to me were daily for the first month or two, till in 
fact, I recovered my spirits.’” Martha’s convent school at 
l’ Abbaye Royale de Penthemont is described by Randall 

s “the most fashionable and difficult of access in France.” 
Jefferson mentions it in a letter to his sister, Mrs. Bolling, 
as the best house of education for girls in France, adding: 
“There are in it as many Protestants as Catholics, and 
not a word is ever spoken to them on the subject of reli- 
gion.” Jefferson acted the part of mother and father to 
his daughters. His letters to them and theirs to him are 
charming. Sometimes Martha, dutiful but sprightly, 
called for rebuke; as when she tried to get off reading 
Livy, whose “‘ancient Italian”’ she found very difficult. 
“Titus Livius,” she wrote “‘puts me out of my wits.” Her 
father told her to persevere and take courage. Here is an 
extract from Martha’s answering letter (May 27, 1787) :— 

“T have learnt several new pieces on the harpsichord, drawn five 
landscapes and three flowers, and hope to have done something more 
by the time you come. I go on pretty well with my history, and as for 
Tite Live, I have begun it three or four times, and go on so slowly with 
it that I believe I never shall finish it. It was in vain that I took cour- 
age; it serves to little good in the execution of a thing almost impos- 
sible. I read a little of it with my master, who tells me almost all the 
words, and in fine it makes me lose my time.’ 

Jefferson’s reply was despatched three days ates from Aix 
en Provence, where he was trying to cure his wrist : — 

“T do not like your saying that you are unable to read the ancient 
print of your Livy but with the aid of your master. We are always 
equal to what we undertake with resolution. . . . Itis part of the Amer- 
ican character to consider nothing as desperate.” 

On another occasion Martha has a complaint against 
her father: “You wrote me a long letter as I asked you; 
however, it would have been much more so without so 
wide a margin!” When Martha overspends, Jefferson is 


[ 206 ] 


Diplomat and Traveller 


as severe as a parent should be; but he sends the money. 
He taught her never to be idle: ‘“‘No person,” he wrote, 
“‘will have occasion to complain of the want of time who 
never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if 
we are always doing.” 

After arriving at Paris Jefferson called on old Benjamin 
Franklin at Passy, and they wrote to John Adams, who 
was at the Hague, to join them. The three then fixed the 
form of a Commercial Treaty drafted by Jefferson, which 
should be offered to such nations as were found ready to 
treat. But the industries of European nations were then 
so wrapped and strangled in regulations, restrictions, mo- 
nopolies, prehibitions, tariffs, and octrois that proposals 
for liberating trade found little favour. In a conference 
with the Count de Vergennes, Louis’ foreign minister, 
Jefferson tells us, it was found better to leave to negotia- 
tion on both sides “‘such modifications of our commercial 
intercourse as would voluntarily flow from amicable dis- 
positions.”” The three American negotiators had one 
success. “Old Frederic of Prussia met us cordially,” and 
without hesitation appointed Thulemeyer, his minister at 
the Hague, to negotiate. “‘We communicated to him our 
projet, which with little alteration by the King was soon 
concluded.” This treaty with Frederic the Great con- 
tained a clause, which on Franklin’s suggestion had been 
proposed by the American Commissioners to the British 
Government during the Peace negotiations. Its main 
object was to provide for the immunity of peaceful ship- 
ping and commerce in time of war. This clause (Article 23 
of the treaty with Prussia), originated by Franklin and en- 
dorsed by Jefferson, is an important landmark in the his- 
tory of man’s vain struggle for peace and civilisation. 
It runs: — 


[ 207 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


“Tf war should arise between the two contracting parties, the mer- 
chants of either country, then residing in the other, shall be allowed to 
remain nine months to collect their debts and settle their affairs, and 
may depart freely, carrying off all their effects without molestation or - 
hindrance; and all women and children, scholars of every faculty, cul- 
tivators of the earth, artisans, manufacturers, and fishermen, unarmed 
and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages, or places, and in general all 
others, whose occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit 
of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective employments, ‘ 
and shall not be molested in their persons, nor shall their houses and 
goods be burnt, or otherwise destroyed, nor their fields wasted by the 
armed force of the enemy into whose power, by the events of war, they 
may happen to fall; but, if anything is necessary to be taken from 
them for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at a 
reasonable price. And all merchants and trading vessels employed in 
exchanging the products of different places, and thereby rendering the 
necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of human life more easy to be 
obtained, and more general, shall be allowed to pass free and unmo- 
lested; and neither of the contracting powers shall grant or issue any 
commission to any private armed vessels, empowering them to take or 
destroy such trading vessels, or interrupt such commerce.” 


The clause, wrote Jefferson afterwards, “‘was refused by 
England, and unwisely in my opinion. For, in the case of 
a war with us, their superior commerce would place [it] 
infinitely more at hazard on the ocean than ours; and as 
hawks abound in proportion to game, so our privateers 
would swarm in proportion to the wealth exposed to their 
prize, while theirs would be few for want of subjects of 
capture.”” In the middle of the nineteenth century, when 
privateering was at last abolished, Richard Cobden tried 
hard to induce the British Government to accept the 
American doctrine exempting from capture and destruc- 
tion all peaceful ships and non-contraband cargoes, but in 
vain.’ It was revived at the Hague conferences by the 


1Lord Chancellor Loreburn renewed the effort in 1906; but the Foreign 
Office and Board of Admiralty again prevailed. 


[ 208 | 


Painted by Stuart 


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Diplomat and Traveller 


United States and again by President Wilson when he 
preached Freedom of the Seas at the end of the Great War. 
When this reform is finally adopted, by a more humane 
world, let it not be forgotten that Franklin and Jefferson 
were its pioneers. Their commercial negotiations had no 
other conspicuous results. Most of the European powers, 
Jefferson tells us, were indifferent. “‘They seemed in fact 
to know little about us, but as rebels who had been suc- 
cessful in throwing off the yoke of the Mother country. 
They were ignorant of our commerce, which had always 
been monopolised by England.” 

Early in 1785 the veteran Franklin, now infirm with age, 
resigned his post; and on March 10 Congress appointed 
Jefferson to succeed him as Minister Plenipotentiary to 
the Court of France. At the same time John Adams was 
appointed to the Court of St. James’. Franklin had a 
wonderful send-off when he left Passy on July 12. His 
philosophy, wit, and wisdom, his statesmanship and tact, 
had won him the admiration of all France. Jefferson 
knew that Franklin was a difficult man to follow. “You 
replace M. Franklin I hear,” said the Count de Ver- 
gennes. “‘I succeed, no one can replace him,”’ was the 
reply. But it is doubtful whether America or any other 
country ever had a more useful or successful Ambassador 
_than Jefferson. He belonged to the same political school 
as Franklin; he had the same love of science and inven- 
tions. He was less gay, less easy going, less cynical; he was 
earnest but prudent, candid but careful not to offend; 
and a proper sense of his diplomatic position prevented zeal 
from outrunning discretion. The ancien régime was pass- 
ing away; it was Jefferson’s lot to see something not only 
of the old Court and noblesse, but of the new spirit which 
was soon to overthrow them both. Many of the French 


[ 209 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


officers who had served in the United States were his per- 
sonal friends; above all Lafayette, who presently took 
the lead among the liberal aristocrats and patriots, was 
devoted to Jefferson and to the American cause. Though 
his Notes on Virginia had shown him to be a democrat of 
the democrats, a liberal of the liberals, Jefferson saw that 
the French people were not ready for a complete system 
of Republican self-government. He therefore hoped for 
gradual changes, and could honestly cultivate good rela- 
tions with a King who was well inclined, and with minis- 
ters, several of whom were disposed to make large con- 
cessions to the reformers. 

The Count de Vergennes, he says, had a reputation for 
being wary and slippery in diplomacy ; ‘and so he might 
be with those whom he knew to be slippery and double- 
faced themselves. As he saw that I had no indirect views, 
practised no subtleties, meddled in no intrigues, pursued 
no concealed object, I found him as frank, as honourable, 
as easy of access to reason, as any man with whom I had 
ever done business; and I must say the same for his suc- 
cessor Montmorin, one of the most honest and worthy of 
human beings.”’ The chief trouble of the Court and the 
Government at this time was finance. They could not 
balance their Budget, and their credit was not good either 
in France or in Holland. Nor, unfortunately for Jefferson, 
was that of Congress and of American business men. 
Jefferson’s first object was to induce the French govern- 
ment to receive American exports such as tobacco, rice, 
grain, whale-oil, salted fish and salted meats, on easier 
terms, and to grant better conditions to American trade 
with the French West Indies. It was a task requiring 
much skill and patience; for the Farmers General and a 
host of vested interests supported all the abuses and re- 

[ 210 | 


Diplomat and Traveller 


strictions that oppressed the unfortunate people of France. 
By degrees Jefferson managed to gain considerable con- 
cessions to America, though he was constantly met by com- 
plaints that several American States were treating French 
traders badly. Arrangements with Congress, it was said, 
could not be depended on, and American justice was so 
tardy that French merchants looked upon American debts 
as ‘desperate.’ Worse still, Congress was too hard up to 
pay its domestic debts at all, and could only pay interest 
on its foreign debts by borrowing in Amsterdam. As the 
domestic six per cents stood below 60 when the Foreign 
fives stood above g0, some shrewd Dutch speculators 
began to buy up the domestic debt, hoping to force Con- 
gress to resume payment on this also by making it a con- 
dition of a new loan. The most awkward moment for 
Jefferson came early in 1788, when the new Constitution 
was adopted but not established. In March, John Adams, 
who was to be Vice-President, and had to return home, 
hurried over from London to meet Jefferson at the Hague 
to make arrangements if possible for tiding over the crisis 
by a new loan. Jefferson felt the humiliation keenly. “I 
was daily dunned,” he wrote afterwards, “by a company 
who had formerly made a small loan to the United States, 
the principal of which was now become due; and our 
bankers in Amsterdam had notified me that the interest 
on our general debt would be expected in June; that if 
we failed to pay it, it would be deemed an act of bank- 
ruptcy, and would effectually destroy the credit of the 
United States, and all future prospect of obtaining money 
there.”’ Jefferson started from Paris on March 4 by way 
of Valenciennes, Brussels, Antwerp, and Rotterdam, to 
the Hague. There he found Adams, and the two reached 
Amsterdam on the roth. After some difficult negotiations 
aia 


Thomas Jefferson 


they were successful in placing a new loan for a million 
florins, which would make the foreign credit of the United 
States safe for two years until the New Federal Admin- 
istration had time to reorganise and balance its budget. 
They executed the necessary bonds, subject to the ap- 
proval of Congress. The debt problem, so Jefferson wrote, 
pressed upon his mind ‘like a mountain.’ It made him 
ruminate and philosophise. After his experiences with 
Adams in Amsterdam, he took a trip through Germany, 
and soon after returning to Paris wrote a long letter (May 
2) to General Washington, in the course of which he de- 
scribed the gradations of foreign credit in Amsterdam : — 


“Much conversation with bankers, brokers and money holders, gave 
me insight into the state of national credit there, which I had never 
before been able satisfactorily to get. The English credit is the first, 
because they never open a loan, without laying and appropriating taxes 
for the payment of the interest; and there has never been an instance 
of their failing one day in that payment. The Emperor and Empress 
have good credit, because they use it little, and have hitherto been very 
punctual. This country is among the lowest, in point of credit. Ours 
stands in hope only. They consider us as the surest nation on earth for 
the payment of the capital; but as the punctual payment of interest is 
of absolute necessity in their arrangements, we cannot borrow but with 
difficulty and disadvantage. . . . The transfer of the French debt, pub- 
lic and private, to Amsterdam, is certainly desirable. An act of the 
new government, therefore, for opening a loan in Holland for the pur- 
pose, laying taxes at the same time for paying annually the interest 
and a part of the principal, will answer the two valuable purposes, of 
ascertaining the degree of our credit, and of removing those causes of 
bickering and irritation, which should never be permitted to subsist with 
a nation, with which it is so much our interest to be on cordial terms as 
with France. A very small portion of this debt, I mean that part due 
to the French officers, has done us an injury, of which those in office in 
America cannot have an idea. The interest is unpaid for the last three 
years; and these creditors, highly connected, and at the same time 
needy, have felt and communicated hard thoughts of us. Borrowing, 


[ 212 | 


Diplomat and Traveller 


as we have done, three hundred thousand florins a year, to pay our in- 
terest in Holland, it would have been worth while to have added twenty 
thousand more, to suppress those clamours. I am anxious about every 
thing which may affect our credit. My wish would be, to possess it in 
the highest degree, but to use it little.” 


Yet the Hamiltonians assure us that Jefferson knew 
nothing of public finance! 

Apart from the public discredit into which Congress had 
fallen through failure to pay interest on its war debts, the 
private credit of American merchants was at this time in 
disrepute throughout Europe. After the peace of 1782, 
American importers, expecting an immense demand for all 
sorts of comforts and luxuries on the reopening of trade 
with Europe, had used all the credit they could obtain in 
London, Paris, and Amsterdam to buy goods. Naturally 
they had overbought, and the speculative mania was fol- 
lowed by a long series of fraudulent bankruptcies. Stories 
were circulated: of swindlers living in luxury on the credi- 
tors whom they -had robbed. Jefferson, utterly disgusted, 
began to wish that all commercial transactions in the 
United States might be placed on a cash basis. Luxury, 
debt, and discredit seemed to be threatening the sim- 
plicity of Republican manners and the safety of Republi- 
can institutions. He even suggested to one of his corre- 
spondents the advisability of enacting a law under which 
a man ‘would see a prison painted’ on everything he had 
not ready money to pay for! 

From Jefferson the commercial and financial diploma- 
tist we turn to Jefferson the observer and traveller. 

First impressions of a new country by a man of genius 
are sure to be worth reading. From the outset Jefferson 
liked the French people. He found the society of Paris 
brilliant and congenial. Its savants and men of science, 


[ 213 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


the liberal circle of Lafayette, the brilliant women of the 
salons who toyed with new ideas, courtiers, and diplo- 
matists, English Radicals like Tom Paine or Benjamin 
Vaughan, philosophers like Dugald Stewart, American 
adventurers like Paul Jones or Ledyard, were all eager to 
converse with the celebrated author of the Declaration of 
Independence and the Notes on Virginia. And Jefferson 
played his part to perfection — Virginian in hospitality, 
American in political ideas, a match for all comers in learn- 
ing and scholarship, in varied and accurate information 
about affairs, in ease and refinement; eager to learn, eager 
to impart, always ready to help a countryman, but a citi- 
zen of the world too, whose doo was never closed to merit. 

His first impression of the French nation, to be con- 
firmed by future observation, was that of a good people 
oppressed by a harsh government. “‘Indeed”’ so he wrote 
to Mrs. Trist from Paris on August 18, 1785, ‘‘it is diffi- 
cult to conceive how so good a people, with so good a king, 
so well-disposed rulers in general so gerial a climate, so 
fertile a soil, should be rendered so ineffectual for produc- 
ing human happiness by one single curse — that of a bad 
form of government.” Then he went on, with one of his 
wonted exaggerations: “but it is a fact, in spite of the 
mildness of their governors, the people are ground to pow- 
der by the vices of the form of government. Of twenty 
millions of people supposed to be in France I am of opin- 
ion there are nineteen millions more wretched, more ac- 
cursed in every circumstance of human existence, than the 
most conspicuously wretched individual of the whole of 
the United States.” Next month to another friend he de- 
clared, “I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the 
wilds and independence of Monticello to all the brilliant 
pleasures of this gay capital.” 


[214 | 


Diplomat and Traveller 


During his first few months in Paris, Jefferson was on 
affectionate and intimate terms with John Adams and 
Abigail his wife, a Puritan of the Puritans, who heartily 
disliked Parisian morals and society, but loved and ad- 
mired Jefferson, whom she described in a letter home as 
among ‘the chosen of the earth.’ Early in March, 1786, he 
rejoined his two friends in London, where John Adams had 
taken up his residence as American Minister and wanted 
Jefferson’s aid to discuss commercial treaties with Great 
Britain and Portugal, and also to devise means of ransoming 
American citizens from the pirates of Tripoli and Tunis. 

Their commercial negotiations with England were 
foredoomed to failure. It is true that Pitt, securely es- 
tablished in power after the wreck of the Fox-North 
coalition, was a disciple of Adam Smith and was adopting 
free-trade principles in commercial negotiations with Ire- 
land and France. But George the Third could not forgive 
the American rebels, or tolerate the economic reconcilia- 
tion which would have followed political separation, if 
British interests and common sense had ruled British 
policy. Shelburne, now Marquis of Lansdowne, was the 
only conspicuous person in politics who cared or dared 
to favour the American Republic. Lansdowne House and 
Bowood were open to liberal and radical thinkers like 
Priestley, Price, and Jeremy Bentham. Lansdowne’s in- 
timacy with Tom Paine and Benjamin Vaughan proves 
his courage as well as his intellectual independence of con- 
ventional restraints; his sympathy with the French Revo- 
lution was expressed in bold and outspoken opposition to 
the war in which a few years afterwards Pitt reluctantly 
engaged. In many respects Lansdowne was an aristo- 
cratic forerunner of Cobden and Bright; for his policy 
might be summed up in their favourite formula of Peace, 


aire 


Thomas Jefferson 


Retrenchment, and Reform. But Lansdowne, the one 
English statesman whom Jefferson found friendly and 
congenial, was, as he saw clearly, a solitary figure without 
much influence even on the discredited Whig opposition. 
As for the King and Queen, to whom he was presented, 
nothing, he wrote, could have been ‘more ungracious 
than their notice of Mr. Adams and myself.’ He found 
stubborn hostility to any form of commercial reciprocity 
with America. As he put it to R. H. Lee, just before re- 
turning to Paris: “‘There is no party in our favour here 
either in power or out of power. Even the Opposition con- 
cur with the ministry and the nation in this. I can hardly 
consider as a party the Marquis of Lansdowne and a half 
dozen characters about him such as Dr. Price, etc., who 
are impressed with the utility of a friendly connection 
with us.”’! Even Lansdowne did not venture to express 
these sentiments in Parliament; and if he came into the 
ministry ‘of which there is not the most distant prospect’ 
he must adopt the King’s system, ‘or go out again, as he 
did before, for daring to depart from it.’ The King’s ob- 
stinacy was as well known as his embittered hostility to 
America. His sentiments were shared by the Tories and 
‘perhaps’ by the nation. At the same time Jefferson 
wrote officially to John Jay, the Foreign Secretary, that 
he expected no change of disposition ‘during the present 
reign.’ Dr. Price, he added, acknowledged that the 
situation was desperate, ‘which weighs the more as he is 
intimate with Mr. Pitt.’ Jefferson and Adams had also 
the disagreeable task of interviewing a Committee of 


1He must also have met Horne Tooke; for that most eccentric of English 
Radicals remarked to a friend in 1804: ‘he had seen, knew, and respected Mr. 
Jefferson, who was a great man.’ Memoirs of Horne Tooke, by A. Stephens, vol. 


II, p. 337. 
[ 216 | 


Diplomat and Traveller 


American Merchants in London, who were demanding 
payment of pre-war commercial debts under the treaty of 
peace. In reply, after pointing out breaches of the treaty 
on the British side, they observed that the amount of the 
debt was so great, and the coin circulating in the States 
so small, that immediate payment was impossible. Dun- 
can Campbell, the President of the Committee, was rea- 
sonable enough and discussed the problem with Lord 
Caermarthen, Pitt’s Foreign Secretary; but they heard 
no more on the matter. If Jefferson had known the British 
Foreign Office better, he would not have expected it to 
trouble much about a subject so unimportant as trade 
debts or commercial interests. On the whole his estimate 
of the situation proved unfortunately to be correct, and 
it was not until nearly the end of his life that anything like 
friendly relations could be established between the old 
monarchy and the new republic. 

During this visit to England, which lasted nearly two 
months, Jefferson found time to travel to a good many 
places of interest, though he never got nearer to the home 
of his Welsh ancestors than Shropshire. He conveyed 
some of his impressions to his old friend John Page. Both 
town and country fell short of his expectations. Gener- 
ally speaking, he thought the land less fruitful than France, 
but better cultivated, thanks to the long lease system. 
The agricultural labourers were better off than the French, 
and English rents were only about a third of the produce, 
whereas French were about half. In pleasure gardening, 
he declared rapturously, England ‘surpasses all the earth.’ 
He walked over many of them with Whately’s book on 
gardening in his hand, and was struck by Whately’s 
wonderful accuracy. His own inquiries, he says, ‘‘were 
directed chiefly to such practical things as might enable 


[2aaa 


Thomas Jefferson 


me to estimate the expense of making and maintaining a 
garden in that style.’’ He visited the Duke of Devon- 
shire’s garden at Chiswick; Hampton Court; Enfield 
Chase; Woburn; Lady Francis Peiham’s 45 acre garden 
at Esher Place; Paynshill with its costly grotto and 
Doric temple; Wotton (“much neglected” but “the 
water affords two thousand brace of carp a year”); 
Stowe; Leasowes in Shropshire where poor Shenstone had 
died of debt; Hagley, where Lord Wescot’s ponds “‘yield 
a great deal of trout’?; Moor Park with its thirty-acre 
lawn, and Blenheim, where he saw 212 acres of garden and 
over fifty men employed on the pleasure grounds alone. 
He notes that Rosamond’s Bower was near by a little 
grove about two hundred yards from the palace. At Kew 
he inspected Archimedes’s screw for raising water and made 
a diagram of it. His note on Pope’s villa at Twickenham 
may be transcribed : — 

“Twickenham. Pope’s original garden was 33 acres. Sir William 
Stanhope added 13 acres. This is a long, narrow slip, grass and trees 
in the middle, walk all round. Now. Sir Wellbore Ellis’s. Obelisk at 
bottom of Pope’s garden as monument to his mother. Inscription, “Ah, 
Editha, matrum optima, mulierum amantissima, Vale.’”’ The house 
about thirty yards from the Thames: the ground shelves gently to 
the water side; on the back of the house passes the street, and beyond 
that the garden. The grotto is under the street and goes out level to the 
water. In the centre of the garden a mound with a spiral walk round 
it. A rookery.” 

Pope was a favourite poet of Jefferson’s; but on these 
visits Jefferson writes mainly as a critical observer of gar- 
dens, garden landscapes, and a classical architecture. 
Thus at Stowe (then belonging to the Marquis of Bucking- 
ham) he observes, after praising the temples of Friend- 
ship and Venus: “In the approach to Stowe you are 
brought a mile through a straight avenue pointing to the 


[ 218 | 


Diplomat and Traveller 


Corinthian arch and to the house, till you get to the arch, 
then you turn short to the right. The straight approach 
is very ill. The Corinthian arch has a very useless appear- 
ance. ... Instead of being an object from the house it 
obstructs a very pleasing distant prospect.” It is not sur- 
prising that Jefferson should have visited Stowe. Besides 
that it abounded in classical imitations — there were too 
many heathen temples even for Horace Walpole — its 
princely gardens had been improved by “Capability” 
Brown, the famous landscape gardener, who had worked 
there ae LS SMtOR ET CO 

With Adams he visited Stratford on ‘Avon; but Jefferson 
has left us nothing about their day there Bas: an entry 
in his pocket book: “for seeing house where Shakespeare 
was born 18; seeing his tomb 18; entertainment 4° 24; 
servants 2%.” Nor, unfortunately, have we his reflections 
on Edgehill, where one of his Randolph ancestors fought 
on the king’s side, or on royalist Oxford, the home of lost 
causes, where learning vegetated and science slept. 

After the accident to his wrist he was advised by the 
physicians to try the mineral waters of Aix in Provence. 
He saw the opening of the Assembly of Notables on 
February 22, 1787; and then, after an interview with 
Montmorin, Vergennes’s successor, started (February 28) 
on a journey which lasted until June, travelling as usual 
in his own carriage with post horses. He kept a journal 
as in England. There it was devoted to gardening, here 
mainly to agriculture, vineyards, and fruit. He passed 
through Champagne and Burgundy, and then down the 
valleys of Sadne and Rhone to Nismes, where he examined 
and studied, with the eye of a skilled architect, the famous 
Maison Quarrée and other Roman antiquities. “Here I 
am,” he wrote from Nismes, March 20, to the Comtesse 


[219 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


de Tesse, “‘gazing whole hours at the Maison Quarrée like 
a lover at his mistress’ : — 

From Lyons to Nismes I have been nourished with the remains of 

Roman grandeur. .. . At Vienne I thought of you. . . . The Prae- 
torian Palace, as it is called — comparable for its fine proportions to 
the Maison Quarrée — defaced by the barbarians who have converted 
it to its present purpose, its beautiful fluted Corinthian columns cut out 
in part to make space for Gothic windows and hewed down in the residue 
to the plane of the building, was enough, you must admit, to disturb my 
composure. At Orange too I thought of you. I was sure you had seen 
with pleasure the sublime triumphal arch of Marius at the entrance of 
the city. I went then to the Arena.! Would you believe Madam that 
in this eighteenth century in France under the reign of Louis XVI they 
are at this moment pulling down the circular wall of this superb remain 
to pavearoad? And that too from a hill which is itself an entire mass 
of stone just as fit and more accessible. . . . I thought of you again, 
and I was then in great good humor, at the Pont du Gard, a sublime 
antiquity and well-preserved. But most of all here, where Roman 
taste, genius and magnificence, excite ideas analogous to yours at every 
step.” 
He was, in fact, as he told his correspondent — she was the 
aunt of Madame de Lafayette — immersed in antiquities 
from morning to night. “For me the city of Rome is 
actually existing in all the splendor of its Empire. I am 
filled with alarms for the event of the irruptions daily mak- 
ing on us by the Goths, the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and 
Vandals, lest they should reconquer us to our original bar- 
barism.”’ All the same he found time for some reflections 
on the Assembly of the Notables, which the gifted lady 
doubtless passed on to Lafayette. 

Passing from Nismes to Nice he devoted himself to 
fields and farms, culture and cultivators. ‘‘From the first 
olive fields of Pierrelatte to the orangeries of Hyéres has 
been continued rapture to me. I have often wished for 


1The Amphitheatre. 
[ 220 ] 


Diplomat and Traveller 


’ 


you”? — so he wrote to Lafayette, whose head he felt 
sure was ‘full of Notable things’ — and urged him to 
make this journey himself and inspect the condition of the 
French provinces. To do it effectually, “you must be abso- 
lutely incognito; you must ferret the people out of their 
hovels as I have done, look into their kettles, eat their 
bread, loll on their beds on pretense of resting yourself, 
but in fact to find if they are soft. You will feel a sub- 
lime pleasure in the course of this investigation, and a sub- 
limer one hereafter, when you shall be able to apply your 
knowledge to the softening of their beds or the throwing a 
morsel of meat into their kettle of vegetables.’ From 
Nice he made his way to Coni on mules in search of “‘ Pied- 
mont rice,”” and thence to Turin and Tercelli. The gov- 
ernment of Turin, knowing that their rice was the best of 
all varieties, had prohibited its exportation on pain of 
death even to other parts of Italy. This was a case where 
Free Trade principles justified smuggling; so Jefferson 
crammed his pockets with seed for despatch to friends in 
the Southern States. He did some business for his govern- 
ment towards increasing American commerce with Italy. 
Time prevented him from going further south than Milan 
and Genoa; and he was too busy investigating the culture 
of rice, capers, figs, and the olive tree (“‘which 1s assuredly 
the richest gift of heaven’’) to devote much attention to 
architecture, painting, and sculpture. He took with him 
some volumes of the classics and read the story of Hanni- 
bal, but satisfied himself that the descriptions were too 
vague, “‘to enable us at this day to guess at his track 
across the Alps.” In a letter to Martha from Marseilles, 
giving details of his tour, “‘in order to exercise your geog- 
raphy” he told her of his fatiguing journey from Genoa 
back to Aix — “‘two days at sea and mortally sick, two 
[22th 


Thomas Jefferson 


more clambering the cliffs of the Appenines, and two 
others travelling by night as well as day without sleep.” 
After a rest at Marseilles he sailed for a week along the 
Canal of Languedoc — cloudless skies above, limpid 
waters below, and nightingales in full chorus. “This de- 
lightful bird,’ he wrote to Martha, “had given me a rich 
treat before at the fountain of Vaucluse. After visiting 
the tomb of Laura at Avignon I went to see this fountain, 
—a noble one of itself and rendered for ever famous by 
the songs of Petrarch who lived near it.’’ He hoped his 
daughter would be able to hear the nightingale in the gar- 
den of the convent, so that ‘““when you return to your own 
country you may be able to estimate its merit in compari- 
son with that of the mocking bird.” 

Let it not be supposed that we have given a full account 
of Jefferson’s activities. His biographer Parton has de- 
voted a lively chapter to his unofficial labours and amuse- 
ments and hobbies — how he kept Harvard, Yale, William 
and Mary, and Philadelphia apprised of new inventions 
and new books; how he conversed at Paris with Bolton, 
Watts’s partner, learnt about the wonderful steam engine, 
and actually saw one at work in London; how he studied 
the manufacture of watches, and described the new sys- 
tem of standardizing their parts; how he investigated the 
latest devices used in the construction of canals and locks, 
and forwarded particulars to General Washington; how 
he scoured Paris for new and improved lamps; how he 
contrived a portable copying press, and so on and so on, 
of which details are to be found in his voluminous corre- 
spondence. At Paris his favourite recreation in the after- 
noon was a stroll among the bookstalls, where he gathered 
many rare books not only for the enlargement of his own 
library but for Madison, Wythe, and other friends, to 

Peoou 


Diplomat and Traveller 


whom also he forwarded volumes of the Encyclopedia as 
they appeared. He found time to plan the Capitol at 
Richmond on the model of the Maison Quarrée; and 
though his plan was modified by an architect for the worse, 
yet Fiske Kimball in his valuable book Thomas Fefferson, 
Architect, declares that “‘ both in form and in principle the 
Virginia Capitol was the first work of the classical revival 
in the United States . . . and is a landmark of first im- 
portance.” 

Last but not least we must recall Jefferson’s services to 
American agriculture. He sent seeds of various grasses, 
acorns of the cork oak, a whole cargo of olive plants, and 
information about innumerable fruits and vegetables to 
agricultural societies, scientific farmers, and botanists in 
Charleston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. It is said that 
his gifts of Italian rice to the planters of South Carolina 
enabled them to produce the best rice in the world. He 
sent them also seed rice from the Levant, from Egypt, 
from the East Indies, and from Cochin China, which last 
he procured from a “young prince of that country lately 
gone from hence.”” Was there ever such an Ambassador? 


[ 223 | 


CHAPTER II 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 


“See 


What crimes it costs to be a moment free.” 
— Byron 


EFFERSON’S part in the early scenes of the French Rev- 
olution — while reform was still the watchword; 
before reason had yielded to passion and order to 

chaos — deserves attention for several reasons. He was 
an eye witness, a vigilant and competent observer of all 
that passed from the Assembly of the Notables in Febru- 
ary, 1787, to the storming of the Bastillein July, 1789. But 
he was much more than an observer. In spite of his dip- 
lomatic position and a delicate sense of its proprieties he 
saw what went on from the inside as well as from the out- 
side. Lafayette, the most energetic of the Patriots or Re- 
formers, was his confidential friend, his pupil in the art 
and theory of government, looking to him at every crisis 
for guidance and counsel. His own republicanism was 
unimpeachable. His faith in popular government, his 
championship of popular rights, his passion for individual 
liberty were known to all. Yet from the moment when he 
saw light breaking through the long darkness of oppres- 
sion, from the moment when he saw the edifice of tyranny 
beginning to crumble, he was for moderation and piece- 
meal reform. Those who tried later on to represent Jef- 
ferson as a Jacobin, a leveller, a fanatic, on the strength 
of a few violent sentences and exaggerated phrases 


[ 224 ] 


The French Revolution 


wrenched from his private letters, have strangely dis- 
torted his political and public character; for the uncom- 
promising idealist in theory was always moderated and 
controlled by the realist who sought the attainable, meas- 
uring with practiced eye times, seasons, and opportunities. 
Never were his prescience and sagacity put to a more 
severe test than in 1788 and 1789, when he might well have 
been tempted to join the doctrinaires who were for sweep- 
ing away all obstacles and encumbrances, all customs and 
institutions in order to found a new system of government 
on abstract formulas and natural rights. But he looked at 
the people. He saw ignorance, superstition, total inex- 
perience of self-government. He felt that the ‘“ Illumina- 
tion’’ was too partial and too superficial to support a rev- 
olution or to maintain a republic with success. His whole 
influence therefore was on the side of limiting the mon- 
archy, aiming rather at an English than an American 
constitution. ““Be moderate; take what you can get 
without violence; encourage the King to travel quietly 
along the road which leads to a tolerable and workable 
government’”’ — this is the sum and substance of his coun- 
sels tothe Patriots. In his autobiographical Memoir a very 
careful and even minute account is given of these trans- 
actions. “I was,’ he writes, “‘in circumstances peculiarly 
favorable for a knowledge of the truth. Possessing the 
confidence and intimacy of the leading Patriots, and more 
than all of the Marquis Fayette, their head and Atlas, who 
had no secrets from me, I learned with correctness the 
views and proceedings of that party; while my inter- 
course with the diplomatic missionaries of Europe at Paris, 
all of them with the court, and eager in prying into its 
councils and proceedings, gave me a knowledge of these 
also. My information was always and immediately com- 


[225 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


mitted to writing in letters to Mr. Jay and often to my 
friends, and a recurrence to these letters now insures me 
against errors of memory.” 

Students of the French Revolution in its early stages. 
who wish to form a judgment upon the conduct and wis- 
dom of the Patriots, and upon the reasons why a mild well- 
meaning monarch lost his throne and his head, will find 
good material in the pages of Jefferson’s Memoir and in 
his correspondence. To follow his letters and narrative 
in detail is beyond our present scope, and we must be con- 
tent with a brief sketch of Jefferson’s opinions and obser- 
vations. He dates the commencement of the Reforms, 
which through bad fortune or bad management ended in 
revolution, from the decision made towards the end of 
1786 to convene an assembly of the Notables, an ancient 
practice which had not been resorted to since 1626. The 
reason for this was that Calonne, the Finance Minister, had 
come to the end of his tether. He had acted on a prin- 
ciple best described in his own words: “‘A man who re- 
quires to borrow must appear rich, and to appear rich he 
must dazzle by his expenditure.” For a time he had been 
successful; but the credit of the state was now exhausted. 
Confidence, inflated by profusion and extravagance, had 
evaporated; so the minister proposed to the King that 
they should call the notables, restore the Turgot pro- 
gramme, induce the wealthy to bear their fair share of 
taxation, and so get rid of the deficit. Unfortunately Ver- 
gennes, whose influence with the privileged nobles and 
clergy might have induced them to accept Calonne’s proj- 
ects, died in February, 1787, just before the Notables met ; 
and his successor, Count de Montmorin, lacked the 
strength, capacity, and reputation to carry sweeping 
measures of reform. 


[ 226 | 


The French Revolution 


In his account of the more remote causes of the French 
Revolution, Jefferson lays stress upon American influences. 
Celebrated writers, he says, had already sketched good 
principles on the subject of government; but it was the 
American Revolution that first awakened the thinking 
part of the French nation from the sleep of despotism. 
The officers who returned from America were mostly 
young men comparatively free from the shackles of habit 
and prejudice, and therefore open to suggestions of com- 
mon sense and to notions of common rights. They re- 
turned full of new ideas and impressions, which were soon 
disseminated in the press. “Conversation assumed new 
freedom; politics became the theme of all societies, male 
and female; and a very extensive and zealous party was 
formed, which acquired the appellation of the Patriotic 
Party, who — sensible of the abusive government under 
which they lived — sighed for occasions of reforming it. 
This party comprehended all the honesty of the kingdom, 
sufficiently at leisure to think — the men of letters, the 
easy bourgeois, the young nobility, partly from reflection, 
partly from mode.”’ It happened that the dissipations of 
the Queen and court, the abuses of the Pension List, and a 
dilapidated administration had exhausted the public 
credit. To impose new taxes by the authority of the King 
was known to be impossible, and the only resource there- 
fore was to appeal to the nation which might be induced 
to grant money to the government if the King and his 
ministers would consent to the Reforms so long overdue. 

Calonne’s financial character and accounts would not 
bear scrutiny. Villedeuil took his place, and Lomenie de 
Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, was appointed chief 
Minister. On his return from Holland in April, 1787, Jef- 
ferson found Paris in high ferment. The Archbishop was 


peor! 


Thomas Jefferson 


too slow in carrying out the Reform measures. New 
claims began to be advanced, and the Patriots pressed for 
a fixed Constitution, independent of the king’s will: — 


“Nor should we wonder at this pressure,” so runs the Memoir, “when 
we consider the monstrous abuses of power under which this people 
were ground to powder; when we pass in review the weight of their 
taxes and the inequality of their distribution; the oppression of the 
tythes, the sai/les, the corvées, the gabelles, the farms and the barriers; 
the shackles on commerce by monopolies, on industry by guilds and 
corporations, on the freedom of conscience, of thought, and of speech, 
on the freedom of the press by the censure and of the person by Jettres de 
cachet; the cruelty of the criminal code generally; the atrocities of the 
rack; the venality of judges, and their partialities to the rich; the 
monopoly of military honors by the nodlesse; the enormous expenses 
of the Queen, the Princes and the Court, the prodigalities of pensions; 
and the riches, luxury, indolence, and immorality of the Clergy.” 


Most people will probably agree with Jefferson that 
‘under such a mass of misrule and oppression the people 
might justly press for thorough reformation.” The dis- 
content grew until at last, in July, 1788, the King gave way 
and promised to call the States General in May of the 
ensuing year. The Archbishop retired to accept a Car- 
dinal’s hat, and Necker amid popular rejoicings was sum- 
moned to the Department of Finance. Then began a dis- 
pute about the composition of the States General; and 
eventually it was decided in deference to the popular 
voice that the deputies of Tiers Etat, or Commons, should 
be equal in numbers to the Nobles and Clergy. At the 
end of 1788 Necker suggested some important conces- 
sions, which the King was ready to give. But his good 
resolutions were overruled by the Queen and the court 
until at last their resistance was overcome by famine 
and starvation. The winter of 1788-1789 was one of the 
coldest on record. So scarce, writes Jefferson, was bread 


[298 | 


¢ 


The French Revolution 


in Paris that the bakers were only permitted to deal out 
a scanty allowance even to those who paid for it, “‘and in 
cards of invitation to dine in the richest houses the guest 
was notified to bring his own bread.”’ Jefferson was very 
busy helping on supplies from the United States, whence 
between March and May, 1789, twenty-one thousand bar- 
rels of flour were imported. After the opening of the 
States General, in the beginning of May, Jefferson went 
daily from Paris to Versailles and attended their debates, 
generally till the hour of adjournment. He describes the 
Jeu de Paume and the Oath of the Commons delegates 
that they would never separate of their own accord till 
they had settled a National Constitution. He tells of the 
revolt of the aristocracy, of the vacillation of the King, 
and of Necker’s offer of resignation : — 


“The Noblesse were in triumph; the people in consternation. I was 
quite alarmed at this state of things. The soldiery had not yet indicated 
which side they should take, and that which they should support would 
be sure to prevail. I considered a successful reformation of govern- 
ment in France as insuring a general reformation through Europe, and 
the resurrection to a new life of their people now ground to dust by the 
abuses of the governing powers. I was much acquainted with the lead- 
ing Patriots of the Assembly. Being from a country which had suc- 
cessfully passed through a similar reformation they were disposed to 
my acquaintance and had some confidence in me. I urged most strenu- 
ously an immediate compromise; to secure what the government was 
now ready to yield, and trust to future occasions for what might still 
be wanting.” 


It was understood that the King would grant habeas 
corpus, freedom of conscience and of the press, trial by 
jury, a representative assembly with annual meetings 
and the right to originate laws and lay taxes, and finally 
the responsibility of ministers. Jefferson rightly thought 


[ 229 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


that this would give the Patriots all that was neces- 
sary.? 

“They thought otherwise however and events proved their lamen- 
table error. For after thirty years of war foreign and domestic” — he 
was writing in 1821 —“‘the loss of millions of lives, the prostration of 
private happiness, and the foreign subjugation of their own country for 
a time, they have obtained no more, nor even that securely. They were 
unconscious of (for who could forsee?) the melancholy sequel of their 
well-meant perseverance: that their physical force would be usurped 
by a first tyrant [Napoleon] to trample on the independence and even 
the existence of other nations: that this would afford a fatal example 
for the atrocious conspiracy of kings against their people; would gen- 
erate their unholy and homicidal alliance to make common cause among 
themselves, and to crush by the power of the whole the efforts of any 
part to moderate their abuses and oppressions.” 


In June, as the rupture between the court and the Com- 
mons became known, signs of disaffection to the King ap- 
peared among the French Guards. “The operation of 
this medicine at Versailles,” writes Jefferson, “‘was as sud- 
den as it was powerful.”’ Instead of supporting the Clergy 
and nobles against the Tiers, the King ordered them to take 
their seats with the Tiers, and thus the union of orders in 
one chamber was complete. Thereupon the Assembly 
began to frame a constitution, beginning with a declara- 
tion of the rights of man prepared and proposed by Lafa- 
yette. But early in July the King was persuaded by the 
aristocratic party to attempt to restore the royal author- 
ity by force. Necker was dismissed; the Ministry was 
changed. The Marshal de Broglio, ‘‘a high-flying aristo- 
crat, cool and capable of everything” was appointed to 
command the troops. A body of German cavalry was 

1 Thus on February 28, 1787, Jefferson had written to Lafayette urging him 
to follow “the good model of England” by going “step by step towards a good 


Constitution . . . if every advance is to be purchased by filling the royal coffers 
with gold, it will be gold well employed.” 


[ 230 ] 


The French Revolution 


drawn up in the Place Louis XV, supported by some Swiss 
soldiers. Crowds of people gathered and posted them- 
selves behind some large piles of stones. “In this posi- 
tion,” says Jefferson, “happening to be in my carriage on 
a visit, | passed through the lane they had formed without 
interruption. But the moment after I had passed the 
people attacked the cavalry with stones.” The Germans 
charged, but showers of stones obliged them to retire. 
“This was the signal for universal insurrection; and this 
body of cavalry, to avoid being massacred, retired toward 
Versailles. The people now armed themselves with such 
weapons as they could find in armorers’ shops and private 
houses, and with bludgeons; and were roaming all night 
through all parts of the city without any decided object.” 
Next day, July 13, the people were joined by the French 
Guards; on the 14th they stormed the Bastille, and exe- 
cuted the Governor. Versailles was now alarmed. The 
new Ministers resigned; Necker was recalled; the King 
came to Paris and drove in procession. The Assembly 
marched on foot. The Marquis de Lafayette as Com- 
mander in Chief rode on horseback with bourgeois guards 
before and behind. The streets were lined by sixty thou- 
sand citizens “‘armed with the conquests of the Bastille and 
Invalides as far as they would go, the rest with pistols, 
swords, pikes, pruning hooks, scythes, etc.’ Everywhere 
the crowds saluted the procession with cries of “Vive la 
Nation’’; not a single “‘ Vive le Roi” was heard. But after 
the King had adopted the popular cockade, shouts were 
raised of ‘‘ Vive le Roi et la Nation,” and he was conducted 
by a Garde bourgeoise back to his palace at Versailles. 
Thus, writes Jefferson, was concluded “‘such an amende 
honorable as no sovereign ever made and no people ever 
received.” But alas “‘here again was lost another precious 


[231 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


occasion of sparing to France the crimes and cruelties 
through which she has since passed, and to Europe, and 
finally America the evils which flowed on them also from 
this mortal source” : — 


“The King was now become a passive machine in the hands of the 
National Assembly, and had he been left to himself he would have 
willingly acquiesced in whatever they should devise as best for the 
nation. A wise Constitution would have been formed, hereditary in his 
line, himself placed at its head, with powers so large as to enable him to 
do all the good of his station, and so limited, as to restrain him from its 
abuse. This he would have faithfully administered, and more than this I 
do not believe he ever wished. But he had a Queen of absolute sway over 
his weak mind and timid virtue, and of a character the reverse of his in 
all points. This angel, as gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of Burke, 
with some smartness of fancy, but no sound sense, was proud, disdain- 
ful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pur- 
suit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in 
their wreck. Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of 
the Count d’Artois, and others of her cligue, had been a sensible item 
in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming 
hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness 
and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillotine, drew the King on with 
her, and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will for- 
ever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed, that had 
there been no Queen, there would have been no revolution. . . . The 
deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns, I shall neither 
approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say, that the first magis- 
trate of a nation cannot commit treason against his country. . . . Of 
those who judged the King, many thought him wilfully criminal; many, 
that his existence would keep the nation in perpetual conflict with the 
horde of kings, who would war against a regeneration which might 
come home to themselves, and that it were better that one should die 
than all. I should not have voted with this portion of the legislature. 
I should have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harm out of her 
power, and placed the King in his station, investing him with limited 
powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly exercised, 
according to the measure of his understanding. In this way, no void 
would have been created, courting the usurpation of a military adven- 


[ 232 ] 


The French Revolution 


turer, nor occasion given for those enormities which demoralized the 
nations of the world, and destroyed, and is yet to destroy, millions and 
millions of its inhabitants.” 

Jefferson’s stay in Paris was now drawing to a close. 
Necker and Montmorin were restored to office, and the 
Assembly appointed a committee to project a Constitu- 
tion. Its chairman, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, on July 
20 wrote Jefferson a letter requesting him to attend and 
assist at their deliberations; but Jefferson excused him- 
self on the ground of his official duties. The Committee 
soon got into difficulties, and schisms of opinion “broke 
the Patriots into fragments of very discordant principles.” 
They agreed that the Government of France should 
be monarchical. But should the King have a veto on 
legislation? “Should there be two Chambers? If so 
should one be hereditary? or nominative? or elective? 
As dissensions grew in their ranks the patriot lead- 
ers became alarmed. “In this uneasy state of things,” 
writes Jefferson, “I received one day a note from the 
Marquis de Lafayette informing me that he should bring 
a party of six or eight friends to ask a dinner of me next 
day’’: — 

“T assured him of their welcome. When they arrived they were 
La Fayette himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander la Meth, Blacon, 
Mounier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These were leading Patriots, 
of honest but differing opinions, sensible of the necessity of 
effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices, knowing each other, 
and not afraid, therefore, to unbosom themselves mutually. This 
last was a material principle in the selection. With this view 
the Marquis had invited the conference, and had fixed the time 
and place inadvertently, as to the embarrassment under which it 
might place me. The cloth being removed, and wine set on the table 
after the American manner, the Marquis introduced the objects of the 


conference by summarily reminding them of the state of things in the 
Assembly, the course which the principles of the Constitution were 


bess dl 


Thomas Jefferson 


taking, and the inevitable result, unless checked by more concord among 
the Patriots themselves. He observed, that although he also had his 
opinion, he was ready to sacrifice it to that of his brethren of the same 
cause; but that a common opinion must now be formed, or the Aris- 
tocracy would carry everything, and that, whatever they should now 
agree on, he, at the head of the national force, would maintain. The 
discussions began at the hour of four, and were continued till ten o’clock 
in the evening; during which time I was a silent witness to a coolness 
and candour of argument, unusual in the conflicts of political opinion; 
to a logical reasoning, and chaste eloquence, disfigured by no gaudy 
tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in 
parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by Xeno- 
phon, by Plato, and Cicero. The result was, that the King should have 
a suspensive veto on the laws, that the legislature should be composed 
of a single body only, and that chosen by the people. This Concordat 
decided the fate of the constitution. The Patriots all rallied to the 
principles thus settled, carried every question agreeably to them, and 
reduced the aristocracy to insignificance and impotence. But duties of 
exculpation were now incumbent on me. I waited on Count Mont- 
morin the next morning, and explained to him with truth and candour 
how it happened that my house had been made the scene of conferences 
of such acharacter. He told me he already knew everything which had 
passed; that so far from taking umbrage at the use made of my house on 
that occasion, he earnestly wished I would habitually assist at such 
conferences, being sure I should be useful in moderating the warmer 
spirits, and promoting a wholesome and practicable reformation only. I 
told him I knew too well the duties I owed to the King, to the nation, 
and to my own country, to take any part in councils concerning their 
internal government, and that I should persevere with care in the char- 
acter of a neutral and passive spectator, with wishes only, and very 
sincere ones, that those measures might prevail which would be for the 
greatest good of the nation. I have no doubt indeed, that this confer- 
ence was previously known and approved by this honest minister, who 
was in confidence and communication with the Patriots, and wished 
for a reasonable reform of the constitution.” 


At this point Jefferson’s narrative of the French Revo- 
lution concludes. He was now ready to return home — 
for a short holiday as he supposed, but as it turned out for 


[ 234 ] 


The French Revolution 


the rest of his days. His account of these stirring events 
has been very briefly resumed; but enough has been set 
down to show the wisdom of his counsels and the prudence 


of his conduct. 


[ 235 ] 


CHAPTER Iii 
THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION 


“ The perfection consists in this, that out of many moderate varieties 
. arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the 
whole pile and structure.” — MILTon 


E must now return to events less important to 
Europe but of mighty consequence to the New 
World. 

The form of union submitted to Congress in November, 
1777 and adopted by the thirteen States in March, 1781 
—a loose confederacy without a President or executive 
other than committees of Congress—had proved unsatis- 
factory. Congress, it has been said, was a mere Rump 
without dignity or power. Its finances instead of being 
restored after the peace went to rack and ruin; its army 
dwindled to eighty men; it was “despised abroad and 
disobeyed at home.” The first thing needful was to 
balance the budget; so in 1786 the States were asked 
to amend the Articles of Confederation by empowering 
Congress to collect revenue by customs duties on im- 
ports. All the States except New York agreed, but the 
New York veto could not be surmounted. A remedy was 
urgent. At last in May, 1787, a Convention met in Phila- 
delphia to draw up a constitution. Over this Conven- 
tion Washington presided. Its proceedings were secret ; 
but from very accurate notes taken by James Madison 
and published after his death, we know how the constitu- 
tion was hatched out, and what were the constitutional 


[ 236 ] 


The American Constitution 


aims of the leading men who took part.! In his Memoir 
Jefferson gives a succinct account of the need for a closer 
union, and of his own views on the Constitution adopted 
by the Convention. The fundamental defect of the Con- 
federation, he says, was that Congress had no authority to 
act immediately and by its own officers. Its requisitions 
had to be addressed to the several State legislatures, and 
compliance was voluntary. Thus every State legislature 
had a negative on every measure proposed by Congress. 
No wonder that it lost credit abroad and at home. But 
State patriotism was naturally jealous of centralisation, 
and there were still Antifederalists like Patrick Henry 
who could not be persuaded of the need for closer Union. 
Jefferson was not one of them. He saw as clearly as 
Madison the urgent need of a better constitution to 
ensure peace, justice, liberty, common defence, and gen- 
eral welfare.? 

The Convention sat with closed doors at Philadelphia 
from May 25, 1787, until September 17, when the re- 
sults of its labours were published. Jefferson received a 
copy early in November. At that time the Constitution 
was still sub judice, open to criticism and subject to con- 
firmation by the thirteen States. Jefferson approved 
most of the articles, but thought some objectionable. He 
especially disliked that which made the President re- 
eligible for life, and felt very strongly the absence of ex- 
press guarantees to secure freedom of religion and of the 
press, freedom of the person by habeas corpus, and trial by 


* 1All the available materials are collected and skilfully edited in The Records 
of the Federal Convention of 1787 by Max Farrand, IgI1I. 

- 2]Jefferson wrote to Madison on March 31, 1787: “That a thorough re- 
form of the existing system is indispensable, no one who has a capacity to judge 
will deny; and with hand and heart I hope the business will be essayed in a full 
convention,” 


[ 237 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


jury in criminal as well as in civil cases; for, as he knew 
full well, a republican form of government is quite com- 
patible with oppression, and he held that the individual 
citizen is entitled to protection against misrule and intol- 
erance. In letters to his friends, especially to Madison 
and Washington, he expressed these opinions freely and 
urged the desirability of amendments. But the whole 
Constitution might have been endangered if it were re- 
ferred back to a new Convention. Eventually a proposal 
of Massachusetts was carried — with the hearty con- 
currence of Jefferson — that the Constitution should be 
adopted as it stood and that amendments should follow. 
The party supporting the new Constitution were called 
Federalists; and their opponents, who thought that the 
new government would be too powerful v/s-d-vis the 
States, were called Antifederalists. After the contest had 
lasted a good many months, the Constitution was finally 
adopted, largely through the influence of a series of papers 
written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and 
John Jay over the joint signature of ‘Publius.’ These 
papers, known as The Federalist, speedily won, and have 
ever since justly retained, world-wide celebrity both as a 
powerful defence of the American constitution and as a 
treatise on Government. Jefferson read the work in Paris 
with unqualified admiration, and ever afterwards recom- 
mended it along with Coke, Locke, Sidney, and a few other 
favourite authors to those who asked him for guidance in 
political studies. 

Considering that the Constitution was framed during 
Jefferson’s absence, and that his influence was only felt 
indirectly through Madison and his other friends, he had 
reason to rejoice that it so nearly tallied with his theories. 
The amendments he desired respecting the press, religion, 


[ 238 | 


The American Constitution 


and juries, with several others of great value, were made 
by Congress in the first session of the first Congress, which 
met in the spring of 1789 after George Washington and 
John Adams had taken office as President and Vice-Presi- 
dent. It is true that no amendment to provide against 
a re-election of the ‘President was proposed. Jefferson 
was uneasy about this, having observed in feudal history 
and in the recent case of the Stadtholder of Holland ‘how 
easily offices, or tenures for life, slide into inheritances.” 
His own proposal was that the President should be elected 
for a single term of seven years, and should be ever after- 
wards ineligible. But during Washington’s lifetime he 
was content to leave things alone, though he had the can- 
dour and courage to press his views on Washington him- 
self! In the end custom settled the question satisfac- 
torily. Washington retired after his second term; so did 
Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Reviewing the matter 
in his old age Jefferson thought the practice adopted, al- 
lowing the President continuance for eight years, with a 
liability to be dropped half-way, better than his own 
original proposal. As he remarked: “the example of four 
Presidents, voluntarily retiring at the end of their eighth 
year, and the progress of public opinion that the principle 
is salutary, have given it in practice the force of precedent 
and usage; in so much that should a President consent to 
be a candidate for a third election I trust he would be 
rejected on this demonstration of ambitious views.” 

It may be asked why Jefferson was so anxious to limit 
the President’s tenure of office. It was not only because 
the American President was invested with enormous 


1 Paris, May 2, 1788. It was in this letter that he wrote: “there is not a 
crowned head in Europe whose talents or merits would entitle him to be elected 
a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.” 


[ 239 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


power. There was another reason. The miserable weak- 
ness of Congressional Government after the war had 
created a considerable body of opinion, especially in the 
Eastern States, in favour of a strong central Government 
with a strong executive and a standing army which could 
be used to protect property and to overawe the proletariat. 
But this justifiable anxiety for a strong Government was 
associated with monarchical and aristocratic institutions. 
It was believed by many that Republican Government 
was only suitable for a City State or a small country like 
Switzerland. In spite of the wounds left by the war a cult, 
more or less esoteric, had grown up in New England and 
also in New York (where a large section of society had 
remained loyalist until the end of the war) which incul- 
cated the superiority of the British Constitution over all 
others. The leaders of this cult or clique found guidance 
and inspiration in Alexander Hamilton, a native of the 
British West Indies, who had crossed as a boy to seek his 
fortune in New York shortly before the outbreak of the 
war, had thrown himself with ardour into the American 
cause, had won the favour of Washington, and was now a 
successful pleader at the New York bar as well as a rising 
politician. As the story of Jefferson’s public career in the 
last decade of the eighteenth century and of American 
party politics for a much longer period turns on the op- 
posing principles of Jefferson and Hamilton, and of the 
perfectly honourable though bitter antagonism between 
these two ardent men of genius, a word must be said about 
Hamilton’s character and opinions in order to make their 
future controversy intelligible. 

Hamilton was a dashing soldier, a favourite with the 
ladies, a leader in New York society, a man of fashion, a 
fine speaker, an excellent writer, one of the best journal- 


[ 240 ] 


The American Constitution 


ists of his day, well read in political literature, opinionated, 
dissolute, full of projects, and immensely ambitious. 
From his Scottish ancestry perhaps, he inherited a good 
conceit of himself, from a mixture of Scottish and French 
blood he may also have inherited a love of force, which, 
mingled with a hearty contempt for the self-governing 
capacity of the people, helps to explain the aims, objects, 
and disappointments of his career. His talents were united 
with great capacity for work. There was no stronger ad- 
vocate, no more formidable opponent, of a project or a 
policy than Alexander Hamilton. As a political pamphle- 
teer he had no rival save Madison, and Madison’s work 
lacks the verve and animation of Hamilton’s. It was only 
after a long-struggle, whose shifting fortunes provide us 
with constant excitement, that he was at last decisively 
defeated by Jefferson’s superiority in temper, tact, 
strategy, and above all in understanding of the common 
folk and sympathy with their needs and aspirations. 

In Jefferson’s dna we learn that at the Annapolis Con- 
vention of 1786 “‘a difference of opinion was evident 
on the question of a Republican or Kingly government; 
yet so general through the States was the sentiment in 
favor of the former that the friends of the latter confined 
themselves to a course of obstruction only, and delay to 
everything proposed; they hoped that nothing being 
done, and all things going from bad to worse, a kingly 
government might be usurped, and submitted to by the 
people, as better than anarchy and wars.’”’! From Mar- 


1 They found support for their views in the insurrection led by Daniel Shays 
—an American Jack Cade — against the Government of Massachusetts in the 
winter of 1786-1787. It was a revolt of farmers in the mountain districts, who 
refused to pay taxes. Jefferson made light of it, and even represented it as 
a healthy sign of popular interest in Government. 


[241 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


shall’s Life of Washington, from the letters of Jay, and 
others, it is clear that the advocates of monarchical gov- 
ernment, though weak in numbers, were strong in influ- 
ence. Even Washington felt that for some time Repub- 
licanism would be on probation. At the Philadelphia 
Convention, from which the present Constitution of the 
United States was to emerge in September, 1787, Alexan- 
der Hamilton on June 18 proposed a plan of Govern- 
ment for the thirteen States of the Union. The President 
and Senate were to be elected during good behaviour, 2.e. 
practically for life; and the State Governments were to 
be reduced to complete legislative and administrative 
dependence on the central Government of the Union, 
which was to appoint their executives and exercise a veto 
on their laws, besides having power to institute Courts 
in each State “for the determination of all matters of gen- 
eral concern.”” A good summary of Hamilton’s speech has 
been preserved in Madison’s notes of the Convention. 
At that time he and Hamilton were close friends, and he 
submitted his notes of the speech to Hamilton at the time, 
““who approved of its correctness with one or two verbal 
changes, which were made as he suggested.”’ One or two 
quotations will make Hamilton’s outlook clear : — 


“This view of the subject [the difficulties of a Federative Union] 
almost led him to despair that a Republican Government could be es- 
tablished over so great an extent. He was sensible at the same time 
that it would be unwise to propose one of any other form. In his private 
opinion he had no scruple in declaring, supported as he was by the 
opinions of so many of the wise and good, that the British Government 
was the best in the world; and that he doubted much whether any 
short of it would do in America. . . . The members most tenacious of 
Republicanism, he observed, were as loud as any in declaiming against 
the vices of democracy. This progress of the public mind led him to 
anticipate the time when others as well as himself would join in the 


[ 242 ] 


The American Constitution 


praise bestowed by Mr. Necker on the British Constitution, namely 
that it is the only Government in the world ‘which unites public 
strength with individual security.’ ... Their House of Lords is a 
most noble institution. Having nothing to hope by a change, and a 
sufficient interest by means of their property in being faithful to the 
national interest, they form a permanent barrier against every per- 
nicious innovation whether attempted on the part of the Crown or of 
the Commons. No temporary Senate will have firmness enough to 
answer the purpose. . . . As to the executive, it seemed to be admitted 
that no good one could be established on Republican principles. Was 
not this giving up the merits of the question? For can there be a good 
government without a good executive? The English model was the only 
good one on the subject. The hereditary interest of the King was so in- 
terwoven with that of the nation, and his personal emoluments so great, 
that he was placed above the danger of being corrupted from abroad, 
and at the same time was both sufficiently independent and sufficiently 
controlled to answer the purpose of the institution at home.” 


From Madison’s report and from his own notes for this 
elaborate speech, which have been preserved in Hamilton’s 
papers, his ideal government is seen to be a mixed Con- 
stitution consisting of three Estates — a wealthy King, 
wealthy hereditary Lords or Senators, and an elected 
House of Commons — balancing and controlling one an- 
other. 

Although the Constitution actually adopted was a long 
way from Hamilton’s theories and ideals, it was still more 
obnoxious to those who disliked any encroachment upon 
the autonomy of the individual States, and was violently 
assailed on this ground by Patrick Henry and others. 
Hamilton, accordingly, with admirable promptitude threw 
himself into the contest with Madison and Jay as a Fed- 
eralist, laid aside for a time his own opinions, and exerted 
himself with tongue and pen to persuade New York and 
other wavering States to adopt the Constitution as framed 
by the Convention. The breach between him and Madi- 


[ 243 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


son came early in Washington’s First Administration, 
when Hamilton, to use Madison’s words, began “‘to ad- 
minister the Government into what he thought it ought 
to be; while on my part I endeavored to make it conform 
to the Constitution as understood by the Convention that 
produced and recommended it, and particularly by the 
State Conventions that adopted it.” Hamilton found the 
path to centralisation strewn with thorns, and after re- 
tiring from office he grew more and more discontented with 
the Constitution. In aletter to Gouverneur Morris in Feb- 
ruary, 1802, he called it a “frail and worthless fabric” 
though a month or two later he still hoped to make such 
improvements in it as would “keep in check demagogues 
and knaves in the disguise of patriots.”’ His views were 
really dominated by a profound distrust of democracy and 
a belief that the masses, being governed by passion rather 
than by reason, require to be ruled from above. Gouver- 
neur Morris, an intimate friend of Hamilton, who was 
chosen to deliver his funeral oration, wrote to a correspond- 
entin1811: ‘‘General Hamilton had little share in forming 
the Constitution. He disliked it, believing all republican 
government to be radically defective. . . . He heartily 
assented nevertheless to the Constitution, because he con- 
sidered it a band which might hold us together for some 
time. . . . He trusted, moreover, that in the changes and 
chances of time we should be involved in some war which 
might strengthen our union and nerve our executive.” 
These being Hamilton’s real views, it was hardly possible 
that there should not eventually be a clash with Jefferson. 
To suppose that either Madison or Jefferson broke with 
Hamilton because they regarded him as a rival and were 
jealous of his talents and energy is ridiculous. 

There is a class of mean-spirited writers who cannot 


[244 | 


The American Constitution 


allow that a statesman whom they dislike ever acts from 
high motives, or that one whom they adulate ever acts 
from low ones. But Jefferson went into public life and 
remained in it, because he believed in republican prin- 
ciples, desired to extend democracy, and was resolved if 
possible that his fellow citizens should enjoy a full measure 
of individual liberty. He thought that the majority had 
a right to rule, and that the poorest citizen had as good 
a right to vote as the richest. He detested the hereditary 
principle, and would have rejoiced if every hereditary 
aristocracy and every king could have been got rid of 
peaceably. He did not care for power, still less for place 
or patronage for its own sake. He was so fond of country 
life and books and science and mechanics that it is very 
doubtful whether he would have troubled much about 
politics if his principles had always been in the ascendant. 
There is no instance of his trying to push out any honest 
Republican who threatened to be a rival or a competitor 
for the party leadership. On the contrary at the critical 
moment he tried hard to substitute Madison for himself as 
Republican candidate for the Presidency. His opposition 
to Hamilton arose not at all on personal grounds but solely 
on public measures. 

In his Memoir Jefferson tells us, as indeed appears from 
his correspondence with Jay, that he had been asking 
leave of absence more than a year before he actually got it. 
His younger daughter Maria had joined him; but he felt 
that both children had had enough of French society and 
education. His own intention was to take them both 
home and then return himself for a short time to his 
station at Paris. It was, however, not until August, 1789, 
that he received leave of absence. He left Paris on Septem- 
ber 26 for Havre, where they were held up for nearly a fort- 


[245 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


night by contrary winds. On the gth he says, “I crossed 
over to Cowes, where I had engaged the Cleremont, Capt. 
Colley, to touch for me.” Here again they were detained, 
and spent some days in the Isle of Wight. They embarked 
on October 22, and landed at Norfolk on November 23. 
To the end of his life he entertained a strong affection for 
the French people, among whom he had enjoyed so much 
hospitality and acquired so many friends. “‘Their emi- 
nence too in science,” he remarked, “the politeness of the 
general manners, the ease and vivacity of their conver- 
sation, give a charm to their society to be found nowhere 
elscoy 


[ 246 | 


BOOK IV 


OFFICE UNDER PRESIDENT WASHINGTON 
CHAPTER I 


SECRETARY OF STATE 


“Immediately on his return to his native country, at the organiza- 
tion of the government under the present Constitution, his talents and 
experience recommended him to President Washington for the first 
office in his gift. He was placed at the head of the Department of 
State. In this situation, also, he manifested conspicuous ability. His 
correspondence with the ministers of other Powers residing here and 
his instructions to our diplomatic agents abroad are among our ablest 
State papers. A thorough knowledge of the laws and usages of nations, 
perfect acquaintance with the immediate subject before him, great 
felicity, and still greater facility in writing, show themselves in what- 
ever effort his official situation called on him to make.” 

— DanieL WEBSTER, August 2, 1826 


lutions planned by lovers of freedom when carried 

by violence have too often ended in military des- 
potism. The sword drawn for liberty is not easily sheathed 
until order—and tyranny —are restored. It was so 
after the execution of Charles in England and of Louis in 
France. The American Republic was more fortunate. If 
it had lost George Washington as England lost John Hamp- 
den; or if, like the French Republic, it had been attacked 
by powerful enemies, it might not have survived the or- 
deal of 1782 to 1787. At one time the ship of State seemed 


[ 247 ] 


\ s wars seldom go according to programme, so revo- 


Thomas Jefferson 


to be sinking in bankruptcy and discredit. But public 
spirit revived; moderation prevailed; the men who 
framed the Constitution were ready to work it. Their 
task was formidable. ‘‘We are in a wilderness without a 
single footstep to guide us” wrote Madison from Con- 
gress to Jefferson in June, 1789. At that time Washington 
was installed in office; but he had not yet formed a Cab- 
inet; and who could be sure that the victorious general 
would prove a successful ruler? Perhaps no one else could 
have succeeded. Seldom has a new ship of state set to sea 
in worse weather. When all credit has been given to 
others it is mainly to the patience, courage, perseverance, 
practical wisdom, and disinterested patriotism of Wash- 
ington that the nation owed its deliverance. He was the 
pilot who weathered the storm. 

Washington chose his Cabinet with deliberation. In 
September, when Congress had passed a Bill establishing 
the Department of the Treasury, he offered the Secretary- 
ship to Alexander Hamilton, who accepted it with the 
eagerness of youthful ambition, though he could ill afford 
to relinquish his practice at the New York Bar for a salary 
of 3500 dollars a year. At the same time the War Depart- 
ment was entrusted to General Henry Knox, a Bostonian, 
who after serving throughout the war with credit, had 
been retained by Congress to control military affairs. 
Knox was popular with the disbanded soldiers and es- 
pecially with the officers, who at his suggestion had formed 
themselves into the Cincinnati—a secret society with 
anti-democratic tendencies. He was a big athletic man, 
of average military intelligence, who believed in a strong 
government with plenty of soldiers. ‘‘In the Cabinet of 
President Washington,” says Parton, “he was the giant 
shadow of his diminutive friend, Hamilton. When Ham- 


[ 248 | 


Secretary of State 


ilton had spoken Knox was usually ready to say in sub- 
stance: “My own opinion, better expressed.’”’ 

For Attorney-General Washington chose Edmund Ran- 
dolph, who had chosen the Colonial side when his father, 
John Randolph, the King’s Attorney General in Virginia, 
withdrew with Lord Dunmore to England. Disinherited 
by his father Randolph was in sore need of money, and 
knew that he could not live on his salary. But like Hamil- 
ton he responded to the President’s summons, and took 
his seat at the Council Board. At the Virginia Bar Ran- 
dolph had won a reputation for subtlety. In politics this 
turn for casuistry found too much employment. He hesi- 
tated; missed his way in refinements; and often lost sight 
of the wood in counting the trees. Competent where the 
decision lay with Judge or Jury, he was full of doubts and 
hesitations when the responsibility was cast upon him. 
In the Cabinet of Washington he would sometimes argue 
on one side and vote on the other. His natural inclina- 
tion was to support the republican standpoint; but his 
political cake was only half-baked, and Jefferson summed 
him up in a rather bitter epigram: ‘‘Randolph,’ he 
wrote to Giles (December 31, 1795), “has generally 
given his principles to one party and his practice to 
the other, the oyster to the one, the shell to the other. 
Unfortunately the shell was generally the lot of his friends, 
the French and republicans, the oyster of their antago- 
nists.’ This perhaps was a little unjust. Certainly, while 
Jefferson remained in the Cabinet, Randolph supported 
him more often than not. But Jefferson was right in his 
judgment of Randolph as a trimmer, who could not steer 
a straight course. There is an obscurity, almost a shifti- 
ness, in some of Randolph’s letters which may explain his 
fall and subsequent isolation. 


[ 249 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


The principal office under the President, that of Secre- 
tary of State, which comprised not only Foreign Affairs 
but many other functions, was still vacant. Washington 
waited until he knew that Jefferson had sailed from France 
and then wrote to him as follows: 


New York, 
October 13, 1789. 

Sir, In the selection of characters to fill the important offices of the 
Government, in the United States, I was naturally led to contemplate 
the talents and dispositions which I knew you to possess and entertain 
for the service of your country; and without being able to consult your 
inclination, or to derive any knowledge of your intention from your 
letters, either to myself or to any other of your friends, I was deter- 
mined, as well by motives of private regard, as a conviction of public 
propriety, to nominate you for the Department of State, which, under 
its present organization, involved many of the most interesting objects 
of the Executive authority. But grateful as your acceptance of this 
commission would be to me, I am, at the same time, desirous to accom- 
modate your wishes, and I have therefore, forborne to nominate your 
successor at the Court of Versailles, until I should be informed of your 
determination. ... 

. . . Unwilling, as I am, to interfere in the direction of your choice 
of assistants, I shall only take the liberty of observing to you, that 
from warm recommendations which I have received on behalf of 
Roger Alden, Esq., Assistant Secretary to the late Congress, I have 
placed all the papers thereunto belonging under his care. Those papers 
which more properly appertain to the office of Foreign Affairs, are 
under the superintendence of Mr. Jay, who has been so obliging as to 
continue his good offices, and they are in the immediate charge of Mr. 
Remsen.. 

With sentiments of the greatest esteem and regard, 

I have the honour to be, sir 
Your most obedient servant, 
George Washington. 
The Honourable Thomas Jefferson. 


On landing at Norfolk on November 23, Jefferson 
read in a news sheet that the President intended to appoint 


[250] 


Secretary of State 


him Secretary of State. But it was some time before he 
received the letter, with another (of November 30) en- 
closing the Commission. From Norfolk Jefferson drove 
with his two daughters by slow stages to Richmond, where 
Patrick Henry and a committee of the Virginia Assembly 
presented an Address of Welcome. The rest of the story 
may be told in Jefferson’s own words : — 


“On my way home, I passed some days at Eppington, in Chester- 
field, the residence of my friend and connection, Mr. Eppes;! and while 
there, I received a letter from President General Washington by express 
covering an appointment to be Secretary of State. I received it with 
real regret. My wish had been to return to Paris, where I had left my 
household establishment, and to see the end of the Revolution, which 
I then thought would be certainly and happily closed in less than a 
year. I then meant to return home, to withdraw from political life, 
into which I had been impressed by the circumstances of the times, to 
sink into the bosom of my family and friends, and devote myself to 
studies more congenial to my mind. In my answer of December 15th, 
I expressed these dispositions candidly to the President, and my prefer- 
ence of a return to Paris; but assured him that if it was believed I 
could be more useful in the administration of the government, I would 
sacrifice my own inclinations without hesitation, and repair to that 
destination; this I left to his decision. I arrived at Monticello on the 
23rd of December, where I received a second letter from the President, 
expressing his continued wish that I should take my station there, but 
leaving me still at liberty to continue in my former office, if I could 
not reconcile myself to that now proposed. This silenced my reluc- 
tance, and I accepted the new appointment.” 


In his letter of December 15 to President Washing- 
ton, Jefferson wrote, after explaining his reasons for 
hesitation: ‘‘But it is not for an individual to choose 


1Francis Eppes who married Jefferson’s sister-in-law Elizabeth Wayles, 
The Eppington garden and orchards were celebrated for their fine flowers and 
fruit. Jefferson used to describe Eppes as “the first horticulturist in America.” 
In October, 1797, Maria Jefferson married her cousin John Wayles Eppes and 
took up her abode at hospitable Eppington. 


forge 


Thomas Jefferson 


his post. You are to marshal us as may best be for the 
public good ; and it is only in the case of its being indiffer- 
ent to you that I would avail myself of the option you 
have so kindly offered in your letter.” 

Great was the joy at Monticello, where he arrived on 
December 23. The scene was afterwards described by 
Martha, then a girl of seventeen : — 


“There were no stages in those days. We were indebted to the 
kindness of our friends for horses; and visiting all on the way home- 
ward, and spending more or less time with them all in turn, we reached 
Monticello on the 23rd of December. The negroes discovered the 
approach of the carriage as soon as it reached Shadwell, and such a 
scene I never witnessed in my life. They collected in crowds around 
it, and almost drew it up the mountain by hand. When the door of the 
carriage was opened, they received him in their arms and bore him to 
the house, crowding around and kissing his hands and feet — some 
blubbering and crying — others laughing.” 


Jefferson lingered at Monticello through January and 
February, 1790. He was more popular than ever in his na- 
tive State. A committee of his old Albemarle constituents 
came with an address of congratulation. They dwelt on 
his strong attachment to the rights of mankind and to the 
institutions best calculated to preserve them. This struck 
a deep chord in Jefferson, and he responded with a fine 
declaration of his faith and hope in democracy : — 


“We have been fellow-labourers and fellow-sufferers; and Heaven 
has rewarded us with a happy issue from our struggles. It rests now 
with ourselves alone to enjoy in peace and concord the blessings of self- 
government, so long denied to mankind; to show by example the suf- 
ficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs; and that the 
will of the majority — the natural law of every society — is the only 
sure guardian of the rights of man. Perhaps even this may sometimes 
err; but its errors are honest, solitary, and short-lived. Let us then, 
my dear friends, forever bow down to the general reason of the society. 


[ 252 | 


Secretary of State 


We are safe with that, even in its deviations, for it soon returns again 
to the right way.” 


On February 23 at Monticello Martha Jefferson was 
married to her second cousin, Thomas Mann Randolph, 
by Maury, an Episcopal clergyman, son of Jefferson’s old 
schoolmaster. Randolph was a typical Virginian aristo- 
crat — brave, adventurous, sentimental, quick-tempered, 
prodigal, impetuous, public-spirited. From 1818 to 1821 
he was Governor of Virginia. Towards the end of Jeffer- 
son’s life when bad times came for Virginia’s farmers, 
Randolph lost his money and fell into deep dejection. 
But his eldest son Thomas Jefferson Randolph came nobly 
to the rescue and saved Monticello during his grand- 
father’s lifetime. 

It was now high time for the Minister to leave for New 
York, where the new State department was in urgent need 
of a chief. He went round by Richmond, and thence to 
Alexandria, where he rested a day. A heavy snow had 
fallen, and he found the roads “‘so bad that we could never 
go more than three miles an hour, sometimes not more 
than two, and in the night but one.” At Philadelphia he 
had a last talk with Benjamin Franklin. Arrived at New 
York, he says, ‘“‘my first object was to look out for a house 
in the Broadway, if possible, as being the centre of my 
business. Finding none there vacant for the present, I 
have taken a small one in Maiden Lane, which may give 
me time to look about me.”’!_ Much business had been put 
by for his arrival and he was overwhelmed with official 
work, both foreign and domestic. 

As Postmaster General — an office soon to be detached 
from the overloaded Secretaryship of State — he prepared 
a scheme for accelerating the mail service from fifty to a 

1Letter to T. M. Randolph, March 28, 1790, from New York. 


[ 253 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


hundred miles a day. As Commissioner of Patents he 
found congenial work in examining the claims of discover- 
ers, real and pretended. One of the latter, Isaacs by name, 
wanted a patent for converting sea water into fresh. Jef- 
ferson invited him to show his skill on salt water before 
Rittenhouse and other members of the Philosophical 
Society, when the process proved to be nothing more than 
distillation. Another problem which came before him 
was the establishment of a mint. We have seen how he 
had been responsible for the establishment of the dollar 
currency; but as yet there was no public mint, and the 
question whether money should be coined at home or 
abroad was referred to him by the House of Representa- 
tives. Coinage, he replied, is an attribute of sovereignty, 
and to transfer its exercise to another country would be to 
submit to another sovereign. Accordingly preparations 
were made for establishing a mint at Philadelphia, the 
temporary capital. Foreign workmen were imported, 
and 150 tons of copper were ordered from Europe, to be 
converted into cents and half cents. The first coins, half 
dimes, were struck in October, 1792; but the silver and 
gold coinage of the United States never circulated much 
during Jefferson’s lifetime. A report of a House com- 
mittee in 1823 stated that most of the coin in the 
United States consisted of French silver pieces, which were 
then full legal tender. During the debates of 1834, Sena- 
tor Benton, the leading champion of a sound currency, 
paid tribute “to the great apostle of American liberty”’ 
(Jefferson) for the wise, practical idea that the value of 
gold is a commercial question to be settled by its value in 
other countries. This remark he had seen in the works of 
that great man and had treasured it up as teaching the 
plain and ready way to establish the true ratio between 


[254 | 


Secretary of State 


gold and silver.t Jefferson and Hamilton agreed that 
both silver and gold coins should be in circulation, and 
that the ratio between them should conform as nearly as 
possible to the commercial ratio, then about fifteen to one. 
It would seem therefore that Jefferson was a bi-metallist, 
as well as a hard-money man. It was only a short time 
before his death that Great Britain definitely adopted a 
gold standard. 

Another important branch of Jefferson’s official work re- 
lated to foreign commerce. It was not easy to decide on 
the policy which should be pursued towards Great Britain 
and France, and their possessions in the West Indies. 
Both countries endeavoured by discriminating duties and 
regulations to monopolise their Colonial trade. To provide 
a basis for cabinet discussion Jefferson in December, 1791, 
laid before the President an elaborate table, on which he 
had bestowed a prodigious amount of work, showing the 
extent and value of American commerce with France and 
England, and the various duties and prohibitions imposed 
in both countries on American exports. Though the French 
tariff was more favourable, American exports to England 
were five times greater than to France, and American im- 
ports nine times greater from England than from France. 
Commerce with the French colonies in the West Indies 
however was larger than with the British, and 1t employed 
97,000 tons of American shipping, whereas American ships 
were prohibited altogether from the carrying trade with 
the British West Indies. The principal American ex- 
ports to Europe were tobacco, grain, rice, indigo, wood, 
salted meat and fish, whale oil, tar, and turpentine. Be- 


1See Benton’s Thirty Years View, p. 443, and Hepburn’s History of Cur- 
rency in the United States, Chapters V, VI, and VII. Hamilton’s report on 
Mint and Coinage (January, 1791) was submitted to and approved by Jefferson. 


[255 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


sides these there were exported to the West Indies horses, 
mules, cattle, and maize. The most surprising thing in 
this table is the absence of cotton. Ten years later, as 
Tucker remarks, it was already the most valuable of 
American exports, and thirty years later was worth all 
the rest put together. The differences which developed be- 
tween Hamilton and Jefferson in commercial diplomacy 
were partly due to their very different conceptions of 
fiscal policy. Hamilton acknowledged the economic su- 
periority of free trade, but advocated the protection of 
native industries on nationalist grounds. Jefferson was 
no lover of tariffs or of State interference with industry 
and shipping. A disciple of Adam Smith and of the 
French Physiocrats, he believed in a natural exchange 
of products, and an unimpeded commerce between all 
nations. There were two methods, he wrote, of dealing 
with foreign restrictions on American commerce and ship- 
ping — the first by friendly reciprocity, the second by 
retaliation. There could be no doubt that the first was 
the better. 

“Instead of embarrassing commerce under piles of regulating laws, 
duties and prohibitions, could it be relieved from all its shackles in all 
parts of the world, could every country be employed in producing that 
which nature has best fitted it to produce, and each be free to exchange 
with others mutual surpluses for mutual wants, the greatest mass pos- 
sible would then be produced of those things which contribute to human 
life and human happiness; the numbers of mankind would be increased, 
and their condition bettered.” 

But he had not advanced to the full free trade position 
that the right way to meet foreign tariffs is by admitting 
all commodities free, thus reducing cost of living and pro- 
duction at home and enabling the home producer to defeat 
taxed competitors in neutral markets. 

If favour was to be shown, Jefferson preferred France to 


[ 256 | 


Secretary of State 


England, whereas Hamilton preferred England to France. 
These differences of outlook on foreign and commercial 
policy came to a head in Jefferson’s last year of office, 
when the British Monarchy joined the autocrats of Aus- 
tria and Prussia in their war on French republicanism. 

No account of Jefferson’s work as departmental chief 
in Washington’s Cabinet would be true to life, if it left 
out Monticello, the Cynosure of his eyes, the object round 
which his favourite thoughts and dearest affections re- 
volved. With all its interests and attractions office was 
for him a sort of penal servitude. It meant exile from Vir- 
ginia, separation from home. From the day when he took 
up his work in New York to the day when he retired from 
the Presidency of the United States two magnets of almost 
equal power drew him in opposite directions. Sometimes 
public interests or the obligations of party prevailed; 
sometimes the call of home was irresistible. To him 
Monticello meant even more than Mount Vernon to Wash- 
ington. Both loved the life of a country gentleman. But 
to Jefferson Monticello meant not only the delights of 
estate management but also the joys of reading and re- 
flection, of architecture, gardening, botany, scientific agri- 
culture, mechanics, meteorology, and many other pleas- 
ures which were almost precluded by the drudgery of 
office. If railways or motor cars had been invented, 
and the journey from Charlottesville to Washington, 
Philadelphia, or New York had been shortened from six, 
eight, or ten days to as many hours, office would not 
have meant exile. As it was the Secretary of State could 
only revisit home once a year in the autumn. 

In Philadelphia, to which the seat of government was 
removed after the summer session of 1790, he was happier 
than in New York. The society was more congenial. In 


ea 


Thomas Jefferson 


the winter, after a month at Monticello, he established 
himself in a comfortable house on the outskirts of the 
city, with a good stable of horses. There he remained till 
May, when oppressed by overwork and headaches he 
sought relief in a month’s tour with Madison through New 
York to Lakes George and Champlain. A few extracts 
from letters to his two daughters, Martha Randolph and 
Maria Jefferson, will tell us something of this journey and 
more of his character and feelings than many pages of 
comment. The correspondence on Jefferson’s side begins 
with letters from New York in April, 1790. Martha Ran- 
dolph had begun married life at Richmond. Jefferson’s 
wish (soon to be gratified) was that they should take a 
farm near Monticello. For him life is ‘triste enough.’ 
“Having had yourself and dear Poll [Maria] to live with 
me so long . . . and cheer me in the intervals of business 
I feel heavily the separation from you.” Here (April 11) 
are a string of questions to Maria: — | 
“Where are you, my dear Maria? how do you do? how are you 
occupied? Write mea letter by the first post, and answer me all those 
questions. Tell me whether you see the sun rise every day? how many 
pages a day you read in Don Quixote? how far you are advanced in 
him? whether you repeat a grammar lesson every day? what else you 
read? how many hours a day you sew? whether you have an oppor- 
tunity of continuing your music? whether you know how to make a 
pudding yet, to cut out a beefsteak, to sow spinach? or to set a hen?” 
By the autumn Martha and her husband were at Mon- 
ticello, and Jefferson’s first letters from Philadelphia are 
full of careful instructions to ensure a regular correspond- 
ence, and of complaints when letters fail to arrive : — 
MeN ate y otereoe Philadelphia, Dec. 7, 1790 


“This week I write to you, and if you answer my letter as soon as 
your receive it, and send it to Colonel Bell at Charlottesville, I shall 


[ 258 | 


Secretary of State 


receive it the day before I write to you again — that will be three 
weeks hence; and this I shall expect you to do always, so that by the 
correspondence of Mr. Randolph, your sister, and yourself, I may hear 
from home once a week. . . . How do you all do? Tell me that in 
your letter, also what is going forward with you, how you employ your- 
self, what weather you have had. We have already had two or three 
snows here. The workmen are so slow in finishing the house I have 
rented here, that I know not when I shall have it ready, except one 
room which they promise me this week, and which will be my bedroom 
study, dining-rocm, and parlor.” 


Philadelphia, Dec. 23, 1790 

To Martha Jefferson Randolph, 

“This is a scolding letter for you all. I have not received a scrip of 
a pen from home since I left it. I think it is so easy for you to write me 
one letter every week, which will be but once in the three weeks for 
each of you, when I write one every week, who have not one moment’s 
repose from business, from the first to the last moment of the week. 
Perhaps you think you have nothing to say to me. It is a great deal 
to say you are all well . . . besides, that there is not a sprig of grass 
that shoots uninteresting to me; nor any thing that moves from yourself 
down to Bergére or Grizzle.”’ } 


Philadelphia, Feb. 9th, 1791 
To Martha Jefferson Randolph, 

“Your last two letters are those which have given me the greatest 
pleasure of any that I have ever received from you. The one announced 
that you were become a notable housewife; the other, a mother. This 
last is undoubtedly the keystone of the arch of matrimonial happiness, 
as the first is its daily aliment. Accept my sincere congratulations for 
yourself and Mr. Randolph.” 


Philadelphia, March gth, 1791 
To Maria Jefferson, 

“Tam happy to have at length a letter of yours to answer; for that 
which you wrote to me Feb. 13th came to hand Feb. 28th. I hope 
our correspondence will now be more regular, that you will be no 
more lazy, and I no more in the pouts on that account. On the 27th 
of February I saw blackbirds and robin redbreasts, and on the 7th of 


1Two shepherd dogs they had brought from France. 


[259 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


this month I heard frogs for the first time this year. Have you noted 
the first appearance of these things at Monticello? I hope you have, 
and will continue to note every appearance, animal and vegetable, which 
indicates the approach of spring, and will communicate them to me. 
By these means we shall be able to compare the climates of Philadelphia 
and Monticello. Tell me when you shall have peas, etc. up; when 
everything comes to table; when you shall have the first chickens 
hatched; when every kind of tree blossoms, or puts forth leaves; 
when each kind of flower blooms. Kiss your sister and niece for me.” 


To the same, March 3Ist 

“T wrote you in my last that the frogs had begun their songs on the 
7th; since that the bluebirds saluted us on the 17th; the weeping wil- 
lows began to leaf on the 18th; the lilac and the gooseberry on the 
25th, and the golden willow on the 26th. I enclose for your sister three 
kinds of flowering beans, very beautiful and very rare. She must plant 
and nourish them with her own hand this year in order to save enough 
seeds for herself and me. Tell Mr. Randolph I have sold my tobacco 
for five dollars per c., and the rise between this and September.” 


Philadelphia, April 17th, 1791 
To Martha Jefferson Randolph, 

“Mrs. Trist has observed that there is a kind of veil lately introduced 
here, and much approved. It fastens over the brim of the hat, and then 
draws round the neck as close or open as you please. I desire a couple 
to be made to go with the calash and other things. . . . I shall not be 
able to see you till September, by which time the young grand-daughter 
will begin to look bold and knowing.” 


On April 24 Jefferson tells Maria that she has failed 
him as a botanical and zoological correspondent; but 
he perseveres with his notes on spring in Philadelphia: 
“April 5. Apricots in bloom. Cherry leafing. April 9. 
Peach in blossom. Apple leafing,” etc. In this letter he 
enclosed the two veils with minute instructions for wear- 
ing them. 

Young Eppes, who was to be Maria’s husband, had 
come to Philadelphia College to take a course which 


[ 260 | 


Secretary of State 


Jefferson was prescribing. On May 8 Jefferson wrote to 
Maria from Philadelphia : —. 


Your letter of April 18th came to hand on the joth; that of May rst, 
I received last night. By the stage which carries this letter I send you 
twelve yards of striped nankeen of the pattern inclosed. It is addressed 
to the care of Mr. Brown, Merchant, in Richmond, and will arrive there 
with this letter. There are no stuffs here of the kind you sent. April 
30th the lilac blossomed. May 4th the gelder-rose, dogwood, redbud, 
azalea were in blossom. We have still pretty constant fires here. I shall 
answer Mr. Randolph’s letter a week hence. It will be the last I shall 
write to Monticello for some weeks, because about this day sennight I 
set out to join Mr. Madison at New York, from whence we shall go up 
to Albany and Lake George, then cross over to Bennington, and so 
through Vermont to the Connecticut River, down Connecticut River 
by Hartford to New Haven, then to New York and Philadelphia. Take 
a map and trace this route. I expect to be back in Philadelphia about 
the middle of June. I am glad you are to learn to ride, but hope that 
your horse is very gentle, and that you will never be venturesome. A 
lady should never ride a horse which she might not safely ride without 
a bridle. I long to be with you all. Kiss the little one every morning 
for me, and learn her to run about before I come. Adieu, my dear. 


Our last extract shall be from a letter to Martha, dated 
Lake Champlain, May 31, 1791: — 


I wrote to Maria yesterday while sailing on Lake George, and the 
same kind of leisure is afforded me to-day to write to you. Lake George 
is, without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw; formed 
by a contour of mountains into a basin thirty-five miles long, and from 
two to four miles broad, finely interspersed with islands, its water lim- 
pid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves of thuja, 
silver fir, white pine, aspen and paper birch down to the water edge, 
here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from 
monotony. An abundance of speckled trout, salmon trout, bass, and 
other fish with which it is stored, have added to our other amusements 
the sport of taking them. Lake Champlain, though much larger, is a 
far less pleasant water. It is muddy, turbulent, and yields little game. 
After penetrating into it about twenty-five miles we have been obliged 
by a head wind and high sea to return, having spent a day and a half 


[ 261 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


in sailing on it. We shall take our route again through Lake George, 
pass through Vermont, down Connecticut River, and through Long 
Island to New York and Philadelphia. Our journey hitherto has been 
prosperous and pleasant, except as to the weather, which has been as 
sultry hot through the whole as could be found in Carolina or Georgia. 
I suspect, indeed, that the heats of northern climates may be more 
powerful than those of southern ones in proportion as they are shorter. 
Perhaps vegetation requires this. There is as much fever and ague, too, 
and other bilious complaints, on Lake Champlain as on the swamps of 
Carolina. Strawberries here are in the blossom or just formed. With 
you I suppose the season is over. On the whole, I find nothing any- 
where else, in point of climate, which Virginia need envy to any part of 
the world. Here they are locked up in ice and snow for six months. 
Spring and autumn, which make a paradise of our country, are rigorous 
winter with them. And a tropical summer breaks on them all at 
once. When we consider how much climate contributes to the happi- 
ness of our condition, by the fine sensations it excites, and the pro- 
ductions it is the parent of, we have reason to value highly the accident 
of birth in such a one as that of Virginia. 

From this distance I can have little domestic to write to you about. 
I must always repeat how much I love you. Kiss the little Anne for 
me. I hope she grows lustily, enjoys good health, and will make us all, 
and long, happy as the centre of our common love. 

Adieu, my dear, 
Yours affectionately 


Th. Jefferson 


At the end of July he asks whether ‘two sets of ivory 
chessmen,’ which Petit his French butler was sure he had 
packed, were safely arrived at Monticello. One wonders 
if Jefferson was fond of the game. At the beginning of 
September he rode back to Monticello with Madison and 
stayed there for a month. On October 12 he started back 
to Philadelphia, stopping at Mount Vernon to confer with 
the President. This time he took Maria with him. Ran- 
dall tells us that his establishment at Philadelphia from 
this time onwards consisted of a steward, Maria’s maid, 


[ 262 | 


Secretary of State 


four or five male servants, and five horses. He prepared 
to remove home in the spring of 1793, but was persuaded, 
as we shall see, by Washington’s urgent solicitations to 
postpone his retirement from office until the end of the 
year. 


CHAPTER II 


THE QUARREL WITH ALEXANDER HAMILTON 


“Quis justius induit arma, 
Scire nefas.”’ 
— Lucan 


perhaps the most important in its consequences of 

any in American history, and comparable in char- 
acter and intensity with that between Fox and Pitt, arose 
from an antagonism of political principles which spread 
rapidly over the whole field of politics and helped to 
create two opposing systems and parties. 

When Jefferson by prodigious industry had disposed of 
the arrears of work, and began to take stock of the politi- 
cal situation, he found to his disgust and amazement that 
the society of New York — now a town of over 30,000 
inhabitants — was pro-British and anti-French, with a 
strong bias towards hereditary and even monarchical instt- 
tutions. It was a commercial community, with a moneyed 
interest naturally prone to snobbery and servile to any 
government which could gratify its social aspirations 
and help it to get rich quickly. In this society Alexander 
Hamilton shone — vivacious, eloquent, pushful, Napo- 
leonic in aims and methods, with French morals and 
English politics. The support of rich speculators seemed 
essential to his schemes for reviving public credit; their 
love of titles confirmed his political theories; and he set 


[ 264 | 


ce political duel between Hamilton and Jefferson, 


aes 
ses mS 
eS 
Semen ie 
Scenes Se 


(OF Majin 


Lo 


Painted by Trumbull 








The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


to work with immense ardour and industry to capture 
Congress by associating the moneyed interests with the 
Federalist party in support of the Treasury. At the same 
time he seized every opportunity of strengthening the cen- 
tral government and enlarging its powers at the expense of 
state rights. 

With equal determination Jefferson and Madison, when 
they saw this policy developing, laboured to sustain the 
republican cause by appealing to the interests of the coun- 
try people against the commercial and stock-jobbing 
classes and to the instincts of local or state patriotism 
against the Nationalists. 

From this conflict American parties took their rise, and 
soon to the dismay of Washington, party spirit began to 
rage within as well as without his Cabinet. His efforts 
to compose differences and to steer a middle course are 
worthy of all admiration; and although his ideal of a 
non-party coalition government was bound to be imprac- 
ticable in the long run, as revolutionary passions swelled 
and surged across the Atlantic, yet his two first adminis- 
trations laid a solid foundation for the safety and perma- 
nence of the new Republic. 

Jefferson’s Memoir ends with his acceptance of office; 
but fortunately he left the ‘Ana’ or notes,! which explain 
many passages in his official life, as Secretary, Vice-Presi- 
dent, and President, including the beginning of the con- 
flict with Hamilton. These jottings were begun towards 
the end of 1791. They have been described as ‘unchival- 
rous’ and even malevolent, because they contain a cer- 
tain small amount of gossip about the political opinions 
and obiter dicta of Hamilton and the Federalists. The 
modern reader, accustomed to diaries and reminiscences 


1 Southey described Boswell’s Life of Johnson as ‘the Ana of all Anas.’ 


[ 265 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


teeming with uncharitable indiscretions, will be surprised 
to find how trivial are Jefferson’s sins, if sins they can be 
called. A few pages of Pepys’ diary contain more gossip 
than the whole of Jefferson’s Anas. Far from condemning 
the Anas we wish that Jefferson and his contemporaries 
had left us not less but more of social and political table 
talk. A Pepys or a Greville, who could have reported as a 
diner out what the partisans of Jefferson, or John Adams, 
or Hamilton, were saying between 1790 and 1800 would 
have lent life and colour to the early history of American 
Parties. Still the fact remains that Jefferson’s enemies — 
whose hostility takes the peculiar form of editing his 
works or writing his life — always lift up their hands in 
holy horror at the depravity of the Anas without exhibit- 
ing any more substantial proof than their own showers of 
abusive epithets. Let us look then at Jefferson’s prefatory 
explanation, written in 1818, to the “three volumes bound 
in marbled paper”? which contained (1) copies of his of- 
ficial opinions given in writing to President Washington 
while he was Secretary of State and (2) his memoranda of 
conversations with Washington and others, and notes on 
passing transactions. 

At first as Secretary of State he made no notes. “After 
a while he saw the importance of so doing. ‘“‘At this day, 
after the lapse of twenty years or more from their dates, I 
have given to the whole a calm revisal, when the passions 
of the time are passed away.” Some he suppressed as in- 
correct, or doubtful, or merely personal. “‘I should per- 
haps have thought the rest not worth preserving but for 
their testimony against the only history of that period 
[John Marshall’s Life of Washington] which pretends to 
have been compiled from authentic and unpublished docu- 
ments.’ Marshall was a Federalist politician, who hated 


[ 266 | 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


the French revolution, and showed his detestation of the 
republican party by representing their principles as hypoc- 
risies, or extravagances, and their leaders as intriguers or 
impostors. It is rather a dull book; but it has an air of 
historical veracity which none knew better to impart than 
the crafty Chief Justice. Jefferson’s answer in his Ana 
and correspondence is not a counter accusation of hypoc- 
risy against his Federalist opponents but an endeavour to 
prove that the contests of 1791 to 1800 “‘were contests of 
principle between the advocates of republican and those 
of kingly government; and that, had not the former made 
the efforts they did, our government would have been even 
at this early day [1818] a very different thing from what 
the successful issue of those efforts have made it.” 

The charges that Jefferson’s Ana contain mean and 
cowardly attacks on dead men, etc. will not hold water. 
His complaints against Hamilton are not personal.! He 
does not say that his private morals were so bad that he 
ought not to have been trusted with office. If he had 
taken that line, a modern biographer might have cited the 
respectable authority of the Unionist Party in Britain, 
which employed Parnell’s misconduct with a woman to 
upset Home Rule. Jefferson’s grounds of opposition to 
the Secretary of the Treasury — to the man and his meas- 
ures — were that Hamilton despised democracy, disliked 
the republican form of government, was a monarchist in 
theory, and sought by administrative measures to subvert 
the constitution, or at least to convert it gradually into 


1Tn the Anas Jefferson described Hamilton as “of acute understanding, dis- 
interested, honest and honorable in all private transactions, amiable in society, 
and duly valuing virtue in private life, yet so bewitched and perverted by the 
British example as to be under thorough conviction that corruption was essen- 
tial to the government of a nation.” 


[ 267 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


something like that of Great Britain under George the 
Third. He undoubtedly came to believe, after a couple 
of years in Washington’s Cabinet, that these were Hamil- 
ton’s objectives, and that his financial measures aimed at 
accumulating new powers in the hands of the Central 
Government. Not the least of the objections felt by Jef- 
ferson and Madison to Hamilton’s financial policy was 
that it involved bribery of the legislature — that the votes 
by which it was in great part carried were recorded by 
‘a corrupt squadron’ of Representatives and Senators in- 
terested in public debt and bank scrip, who ought never 
to have been allowed to vote at all. So far from these 
Jeffersonian objections to Hamiltonian politics and finance 
having been quietly noted at the time and then prepared 
for posthumous publication, they were fully and freely set 
forth by the Secretary of State, not only in conversa- 
tions with Washington recorded in the Anas, but in con- 
temporary letters to Washington and others. There was 
no concealment at the time of Jefferson’s opposition to 
Hamilton’s system. Indeed Washington’s chief concern 
was that their antagonism was so vehement and that their 
partisans in the press and in Congress were so outspoken, 
so bitter and so passionate. Hamilton’s anonymous at- 
tacks on Jefferson, as we shall see, abound in the most 
violent personal invective. Jefferson is ‘the intriguing 
incendiary,’ or ‘the concealed voluptuary,’ or the pro- 
moter of national disunion and public disorder. The odd 
thing is that after writing reams against Jefferson in the 
public newspapers Hamilton was willing, early in 1793, to 
coalesce with Jefferson.! The President had expressed his 
earnest wish that Jefferson and Hamilton should “‘coa-: 
lesce in the measures of the Government and said that 


1 See Jefferson’s interview with the President, February, 1793. 


[ 268 | 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


Hamilton had expressed his readiness to do so.” Jeffer- 
son replied: “‘as to a coalition with Mr. Hamilton, if 
by that was meant that either was to sacrifice his general 
system to the other, it was impossible. We had both no 
doubt formed our conclusions after the most mature con- 
sideration; and principles conscientiously adopted could 
not be given up on either side.” 

To understand the quarrel between Hamilton and Jef- 
ferson we must retrace our steps. Jefferson managed the 
foreign policy of the United States from the beginning of 
1790 to the end of 1793. Hamilton managed its financial 
policy from the autumn of 1789 to the beginning of 1795. 
For the first two years their relations were amicable. They 
had never quarrelled. They were at first good colleagues. 
Jefferson was an admirer of the Federalist, in which Hamil- 
ton, Madison, and Jay had recommended with so much 
skill the Constitution adopted by the Convention. In a 
letter to Hamilton of March, 1791, he concludes ‘with 
sentiments of the most perfect respect and esteem,’ and 
another of February, 1792, endorsing Hamilton’s report 
on the mint winds up ‘respectfully and affectionately.’ 
This seems to prove that differences in opinion had up to 
that time not interfered with personal friendship. But 
how real and fundamental these differences were, is ap- 
parent from the record of a dinner at Jefferson’s house in 
April, 1791. John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were 
his guests. Conversation turning on the British Con- 
stitution Adams observed: “‘Purge that constitution of 
its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality 
of representation, and it would be the most perfect con- 
stitution ever devised by the wit of man.” Hamilton 
paused and said: “purge it of its corruption, and give 
to its popular branch equality of representation, and it 


[ 269 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


would become an impracticable government: as it stands 
at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most per- 
fect government which ever existed.”’ 

The first break came between Madison and Hamilton, 
who had been in friendly partnership over the Federalist. 
The broad ground of principle on which Madison, then a 
leader in the House of Representatives, came to be a critic 
instead of a supporter of Hamilton, was explained by 
Madison in his old age to his friend, Nicholas P. 
Trist: ‘I deserted Colonel Hamilton, or rather Colo- 
nel Hamilton deserted me—in a word, the diver- 
gence between us took place—from his wishing to 
administration, or rather to administer the Government, 
into that he thought it ought to be; while, on my part, 
[ endeavoured to make it conform to the Constitution as 
understood by the Convention that produced and rec- 
ommended it, and particularly by the State conventions 
that adopted it.”1 Madison meant that Hamilton’s policy 
at the Treasury went far beyond financial organisation 
or the restoring of public credit, and that he was trying 
to enlarge the scope and powers of the Central Govern- 
ment. It was some time before Jefferson’s suspicions were 
aroused. He liked Hamilton and admired his talents, his 
vigour, and his efficiency in business. But in the late 
autumn of 1790 he opposed Hamilton’s plan for a National 
Bank as unconstitutional, and Hamilton brooded over 
this, though there was nothing in Jefferson’s opinion 
which should have given any personal offence. 

In a conversation with Washington about the post office 
on February 28, 1792, Jefferson advised the President to 
make it quite independent of the Treasury, because “the 


1See Nicholas P. Trist’s Memoranda quoted in Appendix IX of Randall’s 
Jefferson, and inaccurately by Parton, Chapter 43. 


[ 270 ] 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


department of the Treasury possessed already such an 
influence as to swallow up the whole executive powers.” 
He even expressed a fear that future Presidents — lacking 
Washington’s strength of character and prestige — would 
not be able to make head against the Treasury, unless 
things were placed on a safe footing. A day or two later, 
after breakfasting with Washington, Jefferson enlarged 
upon this theme. A system, he said, had been devised at 
the Treasury, and a series of laws passed, under which the 
states were being deluged with paper money instead of 
gold and silver; and citizens were withdrawing from com- 
merce and useful industry to gamble in scrip. The poison 
had been injected into the veins of government; and 
the constitution was being changed into a very different 
thing from what the people thought they had submitted 
to. There had now been brought forward a proposition 
far beyond any ever yet advanced, on the decision of which 
would depend, “‘whether we live under a limited or an 
unlimited government” : — 


“He asked me to what proposition I alluded? I answered, to that 
in the report on manufactures, which, under colour of giving dounties 
for the encouragement of particular manufactures, meant to establish 
the doctrine, that the power given by the constitution to collect taxes 
to provide for the general welfare of the United States, permitted Con- 
gress to take everything under their management which they should 
deem for the pudlic welfare, and which is susceptible of the application of 
money; consequently that the subsequent enumeration of their powers 
was not the description to which resort must be had, and did not at all 
constitute the limits of their authority; that this was a very different 
question from that of the bank, which was thought an incident to an 
enumerated power; that, therefore, this decision was expected with 
great anxiety; that, indeed, I hoped the proposition would be rejected, 
believing there was a majority in both Houses against it, and that if it 
should be, it would be considered as a proof that things were returning 


273] 


Thomas Jefferson 


to their true channel; and that, at any rate, I looked forward to the 
broad representation which would shortly take place, for keeping the 
general constitution on its true ground; and this could remove a great 
deal of the discontent which had shown itself.’ ! 

‘Hamilton’s reputation has suffered from hero worship. 
He is The Conqueror of Mrs. Atherton’s romantic imagina- 
tion. Mr. Oliver, one of the latest votaries, an English- 
man, has thought it necessary to sacrifice victims on the 
altar and to decorate his idol with garlands — such as the 
Monroe doctrine — which he never won. That Hamilton 
may look the giant, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe must 
be pygmies; even the stature of Washington must be 
diminished, so that the President may appear sometimes 
as Hamilton’s pupil, sometimes as his puppet. To improve 
Hamilton’s appearance, the characters of his antagonists 
must be blackened. To sublimate him, their lives, con- 
duct, and motives must be soiled and defiled. Their 
mean and petty ambitions, their paltry views of national 
honour, their pettifogging moralities, their low cunning, 
their underhand intrigues are the artistic background of 
Hamilton’s unapproachable magnificence. His effulgent 
personality seems to need a background of political male- 
factors. That his grand designs and vaulting ambitions 
were rejected and defeated by the American people is one 
of the incomprehensible tragedies of history — and all the 
more so because the republican party led by Jefferson 
and Madison was not wholly composed of ‘bad citizens 
and dishonest rascals’ and of ‘men who sought a profit 
in disunion or in the repudiation of debts,’ but included 
a number of well-meaning innocents who were stupid 

1 The date on which this conversation with Washington, recorded in the Ana, 
took place is March 1, 1792. Washington had made up his mind to retire at 


the expiration of his first term of office, and was trying to persuade Jefferson not 
to retire simultaneously, 


[ 272 | 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


enough to value state rights and to mistrust the growing 
power of the central administration.! 

It would have been better if Mr. Oliver and others of 
the Hamiltonian sect in their essays on Hamilton and 
Jefferson had been willing to admit that Hamilton’s 
opponents were also men of talent and public spirit, 
stubborn and unswerving in the pursuit of the policies 
they had embraced, and in resistance to those of which 
they disapproved. 

The differences between the two ministers however did 
not become personally acute until the spring of 1792. At 
first they were both absorbed in the work of their respec- 
tive offices and with reports to the President and to 
Congress. Hamilton had organized an effective depart- 
ment on what seemed at that time a somewhat lavish 
scale. Jefferson’s staff consisted of four assistant clerks,’ 
a translator, and a messenger. He had old-fashioned ideas 
of public thrift, and never sought to enlarge or aggrandize 
his office by multiplying its numbers. 

During the summer of 1791 Jefferson by an accident 
became the central figure in a hot controversy which 
blazed up between the Burkians and the Painites. Burke’s 
Reflections on the French Revolution, whose splendid im- 
agery wrapped all the abuses of the old régime ina halo 
of sentimental chivalry and dressed up every reformer in 
the garb of anarchist or atheist, had appeared at the end 
of the year 1790. Thomas Paine, a friend of Burke and 
his guest only a couple of years before, was astounded at 
this tergiversation. For had not Burke been the champion 
of political liberty during the American Revolution? A 
few months after the appearance of the Reflections Paine 


1See F. S. Oliver’s Hamilton, Book III, Chapter ITI. 
2 See Jefferson to Washington, September 9, 1792. 


Pars. 


Thomas Jefferson 


answered with the Rights of Man. ‘The age of chivalry 
is gone,” cried Burke, concentrating all his indignation 
against the people, ‘a swinish multitude’ who sought 
relief from oppression, and all his sympathy on the Queen 
who refused it. “‘He pities the plumage, but forgets the 
dying bird,” was one of Paine’s retorts. When Burke 
wept melodious tears over the titles that had been abol- 
ished, Paine replied: “France has outgrown the baby- 
hood of count and duke, and breeched itself in manhood.” 
Stripped of its rhetoric and poetry, its winding metaphors 
and captivating phrases, Burke’s argument against reform 
is a flimsy structure easily shattered by the plain prose 
and remorseless logic of his opponent. Even in England 
three copies of Paine sold for one of Burke. But one-half 
of Burke was right. He was right in his historical con- 
ception of society, right in declaring that old institutions, 
habits, and traditions cannot be uprooted without the 
risk, perhaps the certainty of disorder, right in predicting 
that the march of events in France (urged on, alas, by his 
pen) would end in frightful chaos. If Burke had recog- 
nized the wrongs suffered by the enslaved people of France, 
the awful iniquities of Church, nobility, and Monarchy, 
the philosophy of the Reflections might have ranked with 
his American tracts instead of procuring him a pension 
from George the Third and the royal commendation: 
“this is a book which every gentleman ought to read.” 
The modern reader of these two famous pamphlets, re- 
membering that Burke appealed to the ruling gentry of 
England to aid their French brethren, while Paine told 
a voteless multitude that they were a majority and as 
‘ such entitled to rule, will easily understand why Paine’s 
antidote, instead of converting the governing classes of 
England to much needed reforms at home, only added to 


[ 274 ] 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


the alarm and disposed them to follow Burke and to 
adopt the fatal policy of making war upon revolutionary 
opinions abroad. 

When Paine was leaving Paris early in 1790, Lafayette 
had given him the key of the Bastille to be presented to 
General Washington. In the same spirit Paine, believing 
(as he said) that republican America was “‘the country 
from whence all reformation must originally spring,” dedi- 
cated the Rights of Man to its first President. “I present 
you,” he wrote, “‘a small treatise in defence of those prin- 
ciples which your exemplary virtue hath so manifestly 
contributed to establish,” adding a prayer “that the rights 
of man may become as universal as your benevolence can 
wish, and that you may enjoy the happiness of seeing the 
new world regenerate the old.” 

An advance copy of the Rights of Man arrived in Amer- 
ica at the end of April, 1791. Madison lent it to Jefferson, 
to be sent on to J. B. Smith, a Philadelphian merchant, 
whose brother was to publish the American edition. In 
forwarding it Jefferson remarked in his covering letter: 
“I am extremely pleased to find it will be reprinted here, 
and that something is at length to be publicly said against 
the political heresies which have sprung up among us. I 
have no doubt our citizens will rally a second time round 
the standard of Common Sense.”’ Just before leaving for 
his tour with Madison in the North, he was thunderstruck 
to find that the enterprising publisher, without asking 
leave, had issued the Rights of Man with these words of 
approval from the Secretary of State prefixed. He saw 
at once what would happen; for the cap exactly fitted 
his old friend John Adams, the Vice President, who had 
scented danger to society in French republicanism and 
had recently given expression to doctrines of an oligarchi- 


[275 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


cal if not a monarchical flavour in his Discourses on Davila. 
Jefferson at once wrote very frankly to Washington. He 
was sincerely mortified by the printer’s indiscretion as 
likely to commit him with his friend the Vice President 
“for whom as one of the most honest and disinterested 
men alive I have a cordial esteem.”’ He had also learned 
that ‘some Anglomen’ were complaining that an official 
sanction of Paine’s principles would give offence to the 
British Government. “‘Their real fear however is that 
this popular and republican pamphlet, taking wonder- 
fully, is likely at a single stroke to wipe out all the uncon- 
stitutional doctrines which their bell-wether Davila has 
been preaching for a twelve month.” 

Returning from the North Jefferson found the news- 
papers were seething with this controversy. A series of 
articles signed ‘Publicola,’ attributed to Adams but really 
written by his son J. Q. Adams, had attacked both Paine 
and Jefferson. Jefferson sent Adams a friendly letter of 
explanation saying that he had never intended or wished 
to appear on the public stage as an antagonist of John 
Adams’ theories of government. On what was the best 
form of government they differed as friends but confined 
their differences to private conversation. In an equally 
friendly reply Adams disclaimed any wish to introduce 
either a monarchical or hereditary system of government 
into America, and challenged Jefferson to produce any 
passage in his writings which would bear that construc- 
tion. He did not disclose the authorship of Publicola, 
but said: ‘I neither wrote nor corrected Publicola.” 
Jefferson did not pursue the controversy, being well satis- 
fied, as he wrote to Paine, that republicanism remained 
the popular creed. Publicola’s attempt to show that the 
British Constitution was superior to the new Constitution 


[ 276 ] 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


of France found no favour. Another year was to pass 
before the excesses of French republicanism set back the 
current and made democratic ideas odious to a powerful 
section of public opinion in the United States. 

Hardly had the dust of Paine and Publicola been laid 
when another storm burst round Jefferson’s head. When 
the government removed to Philadelphia the four clerks 
of his office came with their chief; but the translator, 
who received the princely salary of 250 dollars a year, 
preferred to remain in New York. So Jefferson at last 
had a piece of patronage to bestow. His choice fell upon 
Freneau, the poet journalist, a college friend of Madison 
and Henry Lee at Princeton. Freneau was probably the 
most talented journalist in the ranks of the Republicans, 
and at this time Madison and Lee — who had not yet 
turned Federalist — hit upon him as the most likely edi- 
tor for a republican weekly newspaper, which they were 
planning as an antidote to the Federalist press. Freneau 
was a good French scholar, well qualified for the task of 
translating the Leyden Gazette. But at the end of October, 
eight months after his appointment to this part-time work 
in Jefferson’s office, the National Gazette was launched with 
Freneau as editor. It seems to have been more lively and, 
as time went on, not less scurrilous than the United States 
Gazette, edited by Hamilton’s friend, John Fenno. Fenno 
expressed amazement in his daily Gazette at the turpitude 
of Freneau for daring to maintain the republican point of 
view against Hamilton. One of Fenno’s favourite themes 
was that only awe of Washington kept the demagogues 
in restraint; but for him the new “shilly-shally consti- 
tution”? would be worthless. Thus Freneau was led to 
criticise the President, and strenuous efforts were made 
at a later date to persuade Washington that Jefferson had 


[277 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


got up the paper for this very purpose and was inspiring 
it. This we know to be untrue. Jefferson never wrote 
anonymously for Freneau or inspired his articles. Madi- 
son did write for the paper, and acknowledged that he 
had helped to establish it in order to counteract Fenno’s 
advocacy of monarchical institutions, of Burke against 
Paine, of England against France and so on. Hamilton 
took Freneau’s criticisms to heart, and it is clear that in 
the early months of 1792 he began to meditate retaliation 
on Jefferson as being, with Madison, ‘“‘at the head of a fac- 
tion decidedly hostile to me and my administration.” 
Meanwhile Jefferson, sick of the drudgery and con- 
tentions of office, was bent on retiring at the end of the 
President’s first term, and wrote a long letter to Washing- 
ton (May 23, 1792) which gives a very complete view of 
his opinions at the time. Without mentioning Hamilton 
by name he dwells on the evils of paper money and specu- 
lation, of the strength of the ‘corrupt squadron of paper 
dealers’ in the Legislature, of their efforts to remove all 
limitations on the powers of the Federal government and 
“‘to prepare the way for a change from the present repub- 
lican form of government to that of a monarchy, of which 
the English constitution is to be the model.” That this 
was contemplated in the Convention, he adds, ‘‘is no se- 
cret, because its partisans have made none of it.”” Con- 
sequently discontents and dissensions were growing among 
the people, and especially between North and South. He 
could “scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than 
the breaking of the Union into two or more parts.” It 
was therefore of the utmost importance that Washington 
should remain at the head of affairs. ‘“‘The confidence of 
the whole Union is centred on you. . . . North and South 
will hang together if they have you to hang on.” As for 


[ 278 | 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


his own office it could easily be filled. “‘I have therefore 
no motive to consult but my own inclination, which is 
bent irresistibly on the tranquil enjoyment of my family, 
my farm and my books. I should repose among them, it is 
true, in far greater security, if I were to know that you 
remained at the watch.” Washington’s reply was given 
in conversation on July to. As to monarchy there 
might be desires, but he did not believe there were designs. 
He defended Assumption and the Excise Law, but did not 
touch on Corruption. Freneau’s paper, he said, was ex- 
citing opposition to the government, which would tend 
to produce anarchy, and so lead to disunion and perhaps 
to monarchy. He still longed for retirement, but if he 
thought there was danger to the country he would conquer 
his longing. 

By this time party spirit was flaming up; for the French 
Republic was fighting desperately for its existence against 
Austria and Prussia. On June 16, 1792, Jefferson wrote to 
Lafayette: “Behold you then, my dear friend, at the head 
of a great army establishing the liberties of your country 
against a foreign enemy. May heaven favour your cause 
and make you the channel through which it may pour its 
favours.” Lafayette had been appointed to command the 
army of National Defence, and had won several successes 
in the vicinity of Maubeuge. But he was losing his popu- 
larity with the revolutionaries in Paris, whose violence 
and ferocity increased with the danger of a foreign inva- 
sion. A few days after Jefferson wrote this letter, Lafa- 
yette went to Paris hoping to bring the King and the As- 
sembly round to his view. But he was unsuccessful and 
was denounced at the Jacobin club by Robespierre. 
Next month the Prussian and Austrian armies were mov- 
ing into France; and their commander, the Duke of Bruns- 


[279 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


wick, issued a proclamation ordering the people of Paris 
to submit without delay to their King. He threatened 
that, unless immediate provision were made for the liberty 
and safety of the King and Queen, the city of Paris would 
be delivered over to military execution and total over- 
throw, and that all who opposed the armies of Prussia and 
Austria would be punished as rebels. The effect of this 
savage proclamation and of the junction of emigré nobles 
with the foreign enemy might have been foreseen. “‘As 
the columns of Brunswick advanced across the northeast- 
ern frontier, Danton and the leaders of the city democracy 
marshalled their army of the poor and the desperate to 
overthrow that monarchy whose cause the invader had 
made his own.”! Then followed a national uprising 
against foreigners and traitors, the assault on the Tuilleries, 
the proscription of moderates, the September massacres, 
the battle of Valmy, the proclamation of the Republic 
(September 21), and the retreat of the Duke of Bruns- 
wick. In August, to avoid execution, Lafayette crossed 
the frontier, and was incarcerated with other moderate 
French republicans in the Austrian fortress of Olmutz, 
whence he was to be set free by Napoleon in 1797. In 
all probability Jefferson’s letter never reached him. If 
it had, Lafayette would have learnt about “the stock- 
jobbers and king-jobbers’ who had come into the Legis- 
lature and of the leaders who wanted to anglicise the 
American Constitution. But the people were “firm and 
constant in their republic purity” as the ensuing elections 
would show. This prediction was to be verified; for at 


1See Fyffe’s History of Modern Europe, Chapter II. This chapter will help 
a modern liberal to understand why even the Terror did not induce Jeffer- 
son and Madison to transfer their sympathies from the armies of republican 
France to those of Prussian and Austrian autocracy. 


[ 280 ] 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


the Congressional elections in November the Republicans 
gained a decided majority. 

That Jefferson’s sympathies with the republican cause 
survived the September massacres and the execution of 
the French King in January, 1793, need not astonish 
us. Lafayette and Paine, who at the risk of their own 
lives preached moderation to the Assembly, remained 
republicans in spite of republican excesses. Absolutism 
had appealed to the sword; if there must be war it was 
better that monarchy and aristocracy should go down 
than democracy. Neither in America nor England did 
the struggles of the French nation become indifferent to 
the friends of democracy and liberty, until republican 
patriotism sank under militarism, and Napoleon the 
Usurper quenched liberty at home in order to make him- 
self the tyrant of Europe. When England entered the 
lists to support the old monarchies against the Republic, 
Fox and his friends opposed the war. In America Hamilton 
was for a neutrality friendly to England; Jefferson for a 
neutrality friendly to France. This was to be expected, 
and we cannot wonder that party passions ran high, that 
strong and exaggerated language was used on both sides, 
or that federalist and republican newspapers embittered 
the controversy by vituperating the rival champions. 

Hamilton nursed his wrath against Jefferson until July, 
1792. Then in Fenno’s Gazette of the United States he 
started a campaign against Jefferson for paying Freneau 
with public money to oppose the measures of the govern- 
ment. It does not seem to have occurred to Hamilton 
that, if it was improper in a man who received a small fee 
(a pound a week) as translator of foreign periodicals for 
the State Department to edit a weekly review which 
criticised the Secretary of the Treasury, then it was doubly 

(287) ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


and trebly so in a Secretary of the Treasury with a salary 
of $3,500 to write articles for another editor against his 
senior colleague, the Secretary of State! 

Hamilton’s method is well known in dishonest news- 
paper offices, but now worn rather threadbare. It is by 
rapid changes of pseudonym or initials to make the public 
suppose that a number of independent readers or pub- 
licists are supporting some particular ‘stunt.’ Hamilton 
opened the ball in July, 1792, with a letter from ‘T. L.’ 
unfolding the hideous facts (artistically faked) about 
Freneau’s double position. Then came a series of articles 
by ‘An American’ feigning utter astonishment and 
horror on reading T. L.’s revelations! To Freneau’s affi- 
davit that Jefferson had nothing to do with either the 
establishment or the management of the paper — that he 
had neither influenced, nor attempted to influence it, or 
written a single line for it—‘American’ replied that 
“a pensioned tool’” must be expected to lie; for facts 
speak louder than words or even than oaths. 

By way of avoiding suspicion ‘American’ threw in 
some praise of ‘the Wise Constitution’ of the United 
States, of which the real Hamilton thought so meanly. 
Freneau challenged his accuser to come out of the dark 
into the open; to throw aside disguise and disclose his 
name. Thereupon (August 18) ‘American’ dropped out 
of the fight. Freneau’s Gazette then began to retaliate 
with counter charges against Hamilton for his advocacy 
of the British constitution in the convention and other 
later delinquencies. This brought ‘Amicus’ on to the stage 
in defence of Hamilton and his administration. He com- 
plained that the proceedings in the Convention were pri- 
vate and ought not to be referred to, but was able to state 
that “‘the member in question never made a proposition 


[ 282 | 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


to the Convention which was not conformable to the re- 
publican theory.” 

A course of deception once started on is likely to lead 
to downright falsehood. On September 15 ‘Catullus’ 
comes forward to declare that he is not the original party 
to the charges against Jefferson, but is willing to be re- 
sponsible for the allegations he makes. These consist of 
“American’s’ charges refurbished, with a few new com- 
plaints and insinuations thrown in. 

Of course Hamilton could not have signed these attacks 
on Jefferson without relinquishing office. His Protean 
changes of pseudonym can only have been adopted to 
throw critics off the scent, or to make the public suppose 
that a number of independent persons were scandalised 
by Jefferson’s villainy. The series — which appears in 
Alexander Hamilton’s Works !— is concluded by Metel- 
lus and “A Plain Honest Man.” Mr. F. S. Oliver in his 
Life of Hamilton draws too heavily on our credulity when 
he tells us that Hamilton only adopted such signatures 
because ‘the fashion of the times’ preferred them. As 
his own salary was so small (only fourteen times that 
with which Jefferson hired Freneau to criticise Hamilton !) 
we cannot blame Hamilton for enlarging it by journalism. 
But this particular series of articles could not have been 
written under his own name unless he was ready to resign. 
As it was, the authorship leaked out, and it would seem 


1Fdited by H. C. Lodge, vol. VI, pp. 313 to 387, under the heading ‘The 
Jefferson Controversy.’ F.S. Oliver declares that Hamilton’s accusations were 
proved up to the hilt, that poor Jefferson was convicted of ‘disloyalty, fatuity, 
ignorance, and hypocrisy’ and that the method adopted by Hamilton was 
‘certainly excusable’ for an American Minister who is debarred from speaking 
in Congress. Anyhow ‘Hamilton’s popularity rose,’ and ‘the Federalists were 
elected.’ Mr. Oliver marvels that Jefferson survived these exposures! See 
F. S. Oliver’s Life of Hamilton, Book IV, Chapter III. 


[ 283 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


that they did more harm to the Secretary of the Treasury 
than to the Secretary of State. 

While Hamilton was thus employed, Jefferson was at 
Monticello. At the end of August Washington wrote to 
them both pleading for mutual forbearance and charity. 
Differences of speculative opinion within the Cabinet 
should not be pressed when “‘we are encompassed on all 
sides with avowed enemies.” So reasoned the President, 
much as the Duke of Wellington argued, when he told 
Tory dissentients from Sir Robert Peel’s policy that the 
Queen’s Government must be carried on. 

Jefferson’s reply (September 9 from Monticello) goes 
very thoroughly into his differences with Hamilton. He 
had never intrigued against his measures with members 
of the legislature. But “that Ihave utterly in my private 
conversations disapproved of the system of the Secretary 
of the Treasury I acknowledge and avow.”’ Nor was this 
a merely speculative difference; for Hamilton’s system 
flowed from principles adverse to liberty, and was calcu- 
lated to demolish the Republic by making it profitable 
for members of the legislature to support his policy. 
Moreover in his Report on Manufactures — still to be 
acted on—it was assumed that the federal govern- 
ment might exercise and draw from the States all powers 
necessary for the general welfare. To Hamilton’s com- 
plaint that he was being thwarted by Jefferson, Jeffer- 
son replied that Hamilton had interfered with foreign 
affairs, whereas he had not interfered with those of the 
Treasury. 

Thus Jefferson begs leave of the President to add some 
notice of Hamilton’s onslaughts in Fenno’s Gazette — for 
neither the style, matter, nor venom of the pieces alluded 
to could leave a doubt of their author — and proceeds to 


[ 284 ] 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


show that ‘An American’s’ three principal charges were 
all false :— 

I. of writing letters from France to oppose the present 
constitution ; 

2. of being opposed to payment of the public debt; 

3. of setting up a paper to slander the Government. 
The falsity of the first charge would appear from a perusal 
of the few letters he wrote from France on the subject, 
which he proposed to submit to Washington. His princi- 
pal objection to the Constitution had been that it wanted 
a Bill of Rights, Hamilton’s that it wanted a King and 
House of Lords. ‘The sense of America has approved 
my objection and added the Bill of Rights, not the king 
and lords.” 


The second charge was equally untrue: — 


“My whole correspondence while in France, and every letter and 
act on the subject since my return, show that no man is more ardently 
intent to see the public debt soon and sacredly paid off thanI am. This 
exactly marks the difference between Colonel Hamilton’s views and 
mine that I would wish the debt paid off to-morrow; he wishes it 
never to be paid but always to be a thing wherewith to corrupt and 
manage the legislature.” 


Here one may pause to observe that the severity of this 
letter and its biting sarcasms are explicable, if not justi- 
-fiable, as against a colleague who had levelled malicious 
and untruthful attacks upon him in the public press. 

Coming to the third count Jefferson begins : — 


“TI have never inquired what number of sons, relatives and friends 
of Senators, Representatives, printers or other useful partisans Colonel 
Hamilton has provided for amongst the hundred clerks of his Depart- 
ment, the thousand excisemen at his nod and spread over the Union; 
nor could ever have imagined that the man who has the shuffling of 
millions backwards and forwards from paper into money and money 
into paper, from Europe to America and from America to Europe, the 


[ 285 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


dealing out of treasury secrets among his friends in what time and meas- 
ure he pleases, and who never slips an occasion of making friends with 
his means, that such an one I say would have brought forward a charge 
against me for having appointed the poet Freneau translating clerk to 
my office with a salary of 250 dollars a year.” 


After explaining precisely what he did when the office 
became vacant Jefferson adds that, when Freneau’s paper 
was started, he had looked forward to the chastisement 
of aristocratic and monarchical writers and not to criti- 
cisms of the government. But he did not think there 
was any harm in the Government having a critic in Fre- 
neau’s paper as well as a flatterer in Fenno’s. 

But was not the dignity and even the decency of govern- 
ment committed when one of its principal ministers en- 
listed himself as an anonymous writer or paragraphist ? 
It is a pity that the sentences which follow are not even 
at this day better understood: “‘No government ought 
to be without censors, and where the press is free none ever 
will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of 
attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other 
means of sifting out the truth either in religion, laws, or 
politics.” 

In a concluding paragraph Jefferson rejoiced that 
Washington had agreed to be nominated for a second 
term; but his own resolution to retire was unchanged, 
and he looked forward to it “‘with the longing of a wave 
worn mariner who has at length the land in view.”” Until 
that day arrived he would not disturb the government by 
newspaper controversy; but on becoming again a private. 
citizen “if my own justification, or the interests of the 
republic shall require it, I reserve to myself the right of 
then appealing to my country, subscribing my name to 
whatever I write, and using with freedom and truth the 


[ 286 ] 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


facts and names necessary to place the cause in its just 
form before that tribunal.” 

Hamilton’s reply to the President expressed an “‘anx- 
ious wish to smooth the path of his administration,” and 
praised the President for trying to restore harmony in the 
Cabinet. But his own contribution to harmony was to 
be a continuation of ‘American’ under the new pseudonym 
of ‘Catullus.’ Evidently he had contracted with Fenno 
to keep the pot boiling; for, as he puts it to Washington : 
“‘T cannot conceal from you that I have had some instru- 
mentality of late in the retaliations which have fallen upon 
certain public characters, and that I find myself placed in 
a situation not to be able to recede for the present.”’ Even 
the purple patches and tit-bits of ‘Catullus’ are not partic- 
ularly good. The invective lacks finish, as when he pretends 
to have stripped the garb of quaker simplicity from the 
concealed voluptuary; or in the following: “Mr. Jeffer- 
son has hitherto been distinguished as the quiet, modest, 
retiring philosopher and the plain, simple, unambitious 
Republican. He shall now for the first time be regarded 
as the intriguing incendiary, the aspiring turbulent com- 
petitor. * 

Though Jefferson never condescended to answer Ham- 
ilton in the press, he wrote one public letter which may 
perhaps have served a purpose at the time and might 
serve another now : — 


TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 


Philadelphia, January 2, 1793. 
SIR, 
According to the Resolution of the House of Representatives, of the 
31st of December, delivered to me yesterday, I have the honour to lay 


1 See the third article of ‘Catullus’ which appeared September 29, 1792. 


[ 287 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


before you a list of the several persons employed in my office, with the 
salaries allowed to each, as follows: 


Dollars. 

George Taylor, jr. (of New York), chief clerk, his scoot fixed a 
law. eins nant, Fah 800 
Jacob Blackwell (of Nev ew York); were ee UA a 
George Pfeiffer (of Pennsylvania), clerk. . . oe OD 


Philip Freneau (of New York), clerk for foreign lance does Peril 8 
Sampson Crosby (of Massachusetts), messenger and office-keeper . 250 


The act of Congress of June the 4th, 1790, c. 18, allowed me an addi- 
tional clerk with the same salary as the chief clerk. After the retire- 
ment of the person first appointed, whose services had been particularly 
desirable, because of his long and intimate acquaintance with the papers 
of the office, it did not appear necessary to make further use of the in- 
dulgence of that law. No new appointment, therefore, has been made. 

The clerk for foreign languages has but half the usual salary. I found 
his clerkship on this establishment when I came into office, and made 
no change in it, except that, in the time of his predecessor, when trans- 
lations were required from any language with which he was unac- 
quainted, they were sent to a special translator, and paid for by the 
public. The present clerk is required to defray this expense himself. 

I have the honour to be, with the most perfect respect, 

Sir, 
Your most obedient and most humble servant, 
Tu. JEFFERSON. 


Such was the staff with which Jefferson conducted the 
principal department of government in a manner which 
on his retirement evoked the applause even of the Federal- 
ists. Mr. Gladstone himself could not have asked for a 
more perfect union of economy and efficiency. 

At the end of September, 1792, Jefferson started from 
Monticello for Philadelphia, stopping for a night at Mount 
Vernon, where the President, after a long talk about the 
Monarchists, the Treasury, and the Funding system, again 
exhorted him not to retire. The 4za and Washington’s 
own letters show how earnestly the President sought to 


[ 288 ] 


The Quarrel with Alexander Hamilton 


mediate between his two secretaries and to bring about 
an accommodation. Having consented to stand for a 
second time he was chosen by a unanimous vote of the 
Electoral College. John Adams was re-elected to the Vice 
Presidency, receiving seventy-seven votes, a majority of 
twenty-seven over George Clinton of New York, the 
republican candidate. 


CHAPTER III 


PUBLIC CREDIT AND WAR DEBTS 


“Tt is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.” 
— BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 


United States met in New York early in April, 1789. 

By the end of September, when it adjourned, it had 
enacted a tariff and had thus provided the Government with 
means of restoring public credit. The war had been fi- 
nanced partly by paper money, partly by loans, foreign and 
domestic. On the domestic loans Congress had defaulted, 
and their value had fallen very low. Hearing of Hamil- 
ton’s intentions speculato s began to buy up debt certifi- 
cates at rapidly rising prices during the summer and au- 
tumn of 1789. Hamilton admitted that many holders of 
the domestic debt had bought it at a fourth or a fifth of 
its face value. But his report on the Public Credit (Janu- 
ary, 1790) insisted that all holders alike of the foreign and 
domestic debt should receive the face value of their cer- 
tificates plus accrued interest; and his view prevailed 
over the opposition of Madison, who wished to discrimi- 
nate against speculators in favour of the original holders. 
Madison and his party in the House of Representatives 
were really champions of the soldiers and farmers who had 
parted with their certificates in ignorance of what was 
coming, while the Hamiltonian party stood for the mer- 
cantile and financial interests which now owned the great 


[ 290 | 


Te first Congress under the new Constitution of the 


Public Credit and War Debts 


bulk of the debt and stood to make huge profits if the 
report was adopted. 

The argument on both sides was well maintained, and 
even now it is not very easy to decide on which side the 
balance of justice and expediency rests. But the big bat- 
talions were behind Hamilton and the Treasury. The at- 
mosphere of New York favoured the moneyed interest. 
Those who had sold their certificates were mostly igno- 
rant, poor, scattered, and unorganised. Those who had 
bought them were very much on the spot. After the heat 
had subsided, a cool critic touched on the influences which 
bore Hamilton to victory. The speculators and jobbers, 
he wrote, could press their claims with boldness under 
the imposing plea of keeping public faith and fulfilling 
public contracts : — 


“They therefore exerted all their influence on the question, through 
the public journals, by canvassing with the members, and even, as it 
is said, by more potent appeals to their interests, in offering to make 
them partners in their speculations. During the whole discussion the 
gallery of the House of Representatives was thronged with this class, 
eager to know the result of their past speculations, and to regulate their 
future efforts. Certificates, which it was proposed by funding to raise 
to par, had been currently sold at two shillings and sixpence in the 
pound, some at still less; and even at the time of the debate they 
had not risen above ten shillings. Three vessels had left New York, 
immediately after the secretary’s report, freighted with the means of 
purchasing those evidences of the public debt in the Carolinas and 
Georgia.” 


Hamilton carried his point by a large majority, and the 
speculators hailed the author of their fortunes as the first 
of financiers. But — as the writer we have just quoted 
observes — the injustice done to the original holders 
rankled all over the country. In most of the States the 
value of land had fallen (so Hamilton himself reported) 


[291 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


from 20 to 50 per cent. The spectacle of cunning men 
with fore-knowledge of the Treasury’s plan getting rich 
in a few weeks by buying up the certificates of those 
who had not heard the news was exasperating to the 1m- 
poverished farmer; and the gambling spirit thus encour- 
aged wrought much mischief before the bubble burst. 
Whatever be the verdict of financiers, a triumph of legality 
over equity is never pleasant to contemplate, and many 
good citizens went on regretting long after Hamilton’s 
plans had passed that so many soldiers and patriots of the 
revolution were tricked out of the tardy compensation 
provided for them by their country, while jobbers with 
inside knowledge, like the fox in the fable, ran off with the 
reward due to valour. 

Hamilton had much more difficulty in persuading Con- 
gress to assume the war debts of the States, and but for 
Jefferson’s assistance this part of his plan might not have 
been carried. The broad argument for Assumption was 
that, as the States had taken up arms in a common cause, 
and shared alike in the boon of Independence which their 
common efforts had won, they were all equally bound to 
contribute to the expense of the war, according to their 
ability. Hence the debts contracted in support of the war 
by the individual States were as much the debts of the 
whole as those contracted in the name of the confedera- 
tion. Their creditors therefore had a right to look to the 
general government for payment, and government was 
under a moral obligation to pay them. Madison and his 
friends, who opposed assumption, denied that either the 
States or the State creditors had any right to look to the 
United States for payment. They even doubted whether 
the Central Government had power under the Constitu- 
tion to assume State debts; in any case payment should 


[ 292 | 


Public Credit and War Debts 


only be made where a State could prove that it had ad- 
vanced more than its just proportion to the common 
cause. To assume State debts indiscriminately would be 
to relieve “‘those states most who least deserved it, and 
subject those states, which, like Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia, had already heavily taxed themselves for the sake 
of reducing their debts, to the burthen of further taxation 
for paying the debts of others.”’! These arguments pre- 
vailed. Hamilton was beaten by 31 votes to 29, after 
one of “the most bitter and angry contests” — so Jeffer- 
son wrote —‘‘ever known in Congress before or since the 


DP) 


union of the States” : — 


“T arrived in the midst of it. But a stranger to the ground, a stran- 
ger to the actors on it, so long absent as to have lost all familiarity with 
the subject, and as yet unaware of its object, I took no concern in it. 
The great and trying question, however, was lost in the House of Rep- 
resentatives. So high were the feuds excited by this subject, that on 
its rejection business was suspended. Congress met and adjourned 
without doing anything; the parties being too much out of temper to 
do business together. The eastern members particularly, who, with 
Smith, from South Carolina, were the principal gamblers in these 
scenes, threatened a secession and dissolution. Hamilton was in de- 
spair. As I was going to the President’s one day, I met him in the street. 
He walked me backwards and forwards before the President’s door 
for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the 
Legislature had been wrought; the disgust of those who were called 
the creditor states; the danger of secession of their members, and the 
separation of the States.” 


Though the question did not fall in Jefferson’s depart- 
ment, Hamilton represented it to his colleague as a com- 
mon concern on which members of the Administration 
should rally round the President; and as the measure had 
only been lost by a small majority it was probable that an 


1See Tucker’s Life of Fefferson. 
[ 293 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


appeal from Jefferson to his friends in the House “might 
effect a change in the vote, and the machine of govern- 
ment, now suspended, might be again set into motion.” 

Jefferson, willing to oblige his colleague and anxious 
to preserve the harmony between the States, promised to 
assist. Accordingly he asked some friends to dinner to 
meet Hamilton; and it was agreed that, to restore con- 
cord, the vote of rejection should be rescinded. To 
sweeten the pill for the Southern States Hamilton’s men 
agreed to fix the future seat of government on the Poto- 
mac, after giving it to Philadelphia for ten years. In this 
way the logs were rolled successfully. In Jefferson’s words 
“assumption was passed, and twenty millions of stock 
divided among favoured States and thrown in as a pabu- 
lum to the stock-jobbing herd. This added to the number 
of votaries to the Treasury, and made its chief the master 
of every vote in the Legislature, which might give to the 
government the direction suited to his political views.” 
The bitterness of these after-reflections will surprise any- 
one who is not well read in the politics of Washington’s 
first and second administrations. Statesmen seldom con- 
fess that they have erred; or that they have been taken 
in by a colleague. But Jefferson felt that he had been 
duped, and said so: “I was most ignorantly and inno- 
cently made to hold the candle.” 

Whether Hamilton really gained anything either in 
financial reputation or political influence by the assump- 
tion of State debts may be doubted. Gallatin, the most 
competent and brilliant of his successors at the Treasury, 
was able to show that, had the United States waited to 
assume the State debts till the accounts had been finally 
settled, instead of ‘assuming at random,’ the accounts 
of the Union with the individual States “might have 


[ 294 ] 


Public Credit and War Debts 


been placed in the same relative situation in which they 
now stand by assuming eleven millions instead of twenty- 
two. The additional and unnecessary debt created by 
that fatal measure amounts therefore to $10,883,628.” 
‘Fatal’ indeed seems too strong a word; but this was not 
the only serious mistake in Hamilton’s schemes. Another 
of his proposals was to make the public debt irredeemable 
except at the rate of about one per cent annually. He and 
his supporters seem to have regarded a national debt held 
in the country as a national blessing, and to have aimed 
at securing its supposed benefits for posterity. Fortu- 
nately — to quote an American writer —“this part of 
the Secretary’s plan underwent a material modification ; 
for had either of his propositions on this subject prevailed, 
the public debt, instead of being now [1837] paid off, 
would have been unextinguishable before 1890 or I940 
(according to the terms selected by the creditor) except 
at a rate which might ‘have enhanced the amount more 
than fifty per cent.” 

The problem of the domestic debts of the Federal and 
State governments being thus disposed of in general con- 
formity with Hamilton’s report, there remained the 
question of restoring American credit abroad. 

Hamilton’s principle that the money borrowed from the 
French monarchy and the loans raised in Amsterdam and 
elsewhere should be honoured encountered no opposition. 
The difficulty was how to find the means of payment. It 
was no use printing paper dollars. Interest and instalments 
of principal could only be repaid in gold, silver, or produce. 
We have seen (from the correspondence of 1786 and 1787) 
how thoroughly Jefferson understood the problem in all 
its complexity. He had had painful experience of it as 
Governor of Virginia, as a private debtor to British mer- 


mL 205%) 


Thomas Jefferson 


chants, and as Minister in France, when to his infinite cha- 
grin Congress failed to scrape together the trifle of two 
thousand guineas interest due on a debt of honour to the 
French officers who had served in America. On taking up 
his duties as Secretary of State Jefferson soon began to re- 
ceive urgent applications from Paris; but at first he could 
only send words of hope and good intentions. In 1790, 
however, a loan of three million florins was arranged in 
Amsterdam, part of which was destined for payments to 
France. Jefferson urged Short to use this instrument dip- 
lomatically as a means of opening the French colonies to 
American trade. The Dutch loan was not issued until 
the following spring. On May 1, 1791, Jefferson wrote 
to President Washington: “Our loan in Amsterdam for 
two and a half million of florins filled in two hours and a 
half after it was opened.” A few days before he had writ- 
ten to Short: “‘You know how strongly we desire to pay 
off our whole debt to France, and that for this purpose we 
will use our credit as far as it will hold good.”’ At the same 
time he was to dissuade the French government from lis- 
tening to overtures from speculators who might offer them 
a lump sum. Short was to say that the United States 
“reserves to itself the right to paying nowhere but into 
the treasury of France according to their contract.” At 
this time the French paper money, which the United 
States was buying to discharge the debt, was depreciating ; 
and this naturally led to representations from M. de 
Ternant, the French Minister at Philadelphia. He con- 
ferred with Jefferson, who sent him a written assurance 
that the United States would not take advantage of its 
old ally’s monetary difficulties. 


“I have communicated to the President,” he wrote, “what passed 
between us the other day, on the subject of the payments made to 


[ 296 ] 


Public Credit and War Debts 


France by the United States in the assignats of that country, since they 
have lost their par with gold and silver; and after conferences, by his 
instruction, with the Secretary of the Treasury, I am authorized to 
assure you, that the Government of the United States, have no idea 
of paying their debt in a depreciated medium, and that in the final 
liquidation of the payments which shall have been made, due regard 
will be had to an equitable allowance for the circumstances of depre- 
ciation.” 


Hamilton, it would seem, was not sorry to buy the as- 
signats cheaply and (for the time being) to pay off the 
foreign debt in the cheaper paper money which the French 
government had legalised for the payment of its own 
creditors. For Jefferson’s original draft, after the words 
“depreciated medium:’ ran, “and they will take meas- 
ures for making their payments in their just value, avoid- 
ing all benefit from depreciation, and desiring on their 
part to be guarded against any unjust loss from the cir- 
cumstances of mere exchange.” He altered this to the text 
to meet Hamilton’s views. 

At this time Jefferson was in good spirits. In a letter to 
his friend, John Paul Jones, the famous Admiral, who was 
then in Russia, describing the ‘tranquil prosperity’ of 
America he writes: “‘Our new constitution works well, 
and gives general satisfaction. Public credit is high. .. . 
A census of our numbers, taken this summer, gives us 
reason to believe we are about four millions of all ages 
and sexes.”’ Within a year this tranquillity was broken 
by a catastrophe which was to drench France and Europe 
in blood and misery for more than twenty years. 

In January, 1792, Gouverneur Morris, a friend of Ham- 
ilton’s, was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary at the 
French court. In forwarding his commission with a let- 
ter of credence for the King, Jefferson expressed a desire 
that he should constantly act “in that spirit of sincere 


[ 297 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


friendship and attachment which we bear to the French 
nation,” and that he should especially endeavour to ex- 
tend the privileges of American commerce with France 
and her Colonies. By this time the cause of absolute 
monarchy was lost in France; but her emigré nobles were 
attracting the sympathy of neighbouring despotisms, and 
in February the King of Prussia allied himself with Aus- 
tria to crush insurgent democracy. 

Jefferson was not the man to regret the fall of a mon- 
archy and the proclamation of a republic, much as he de- 
plored the revolutionary violence of which Lafayette and 
many of his friends were victims. But the confusion in 
France was to cause him many difficulties. In October 
he wrote to Gouverneur Morris that until a legitimate 
government had taken the place of the late Constitution 
“we cannot continue the payment of our debts to France, 
because there is no person authorized to receive it and to 
give us an unobjectionable acquittal.’”’ The suspension 
however did not proceed from any wish to delay payment, 
or to oppose the settlement of their government in any 
way the French nation desired. In March of the following 
year, 1793, he received information that a National As- 
sembly had met with full powers to transact the affairs of 
the French nation, and he informed Morris that an appli- 
cation had been received for three millions of livres, to be 
laid out in provisions, of which Paris was in desperate 
need. “‘Urged by the strongest attachment to that coun- 
try,” wrote Jefferson, “and thinking it even providential 
that moneys lent to us in distress could be repaid under 
like circumstances, we had no hesitation to comply with 
the application, and arrangements are accordingly taken 
for furnishing this sam at epochs accommodated to the 
demand and our means of paying it.” It was fortunate 


[ 298 | 


Public Credit and War Debts 


for the American treasury that the new French republic 
was glad to recover its debt in provisions, which it was pos- 
sible to furnish, instead of in gold or silver which could not 
have been supplied. But M. Genét, the new French min- 
ister, demanded that the whole debt should be paid at 
once in produce. This was impossible, but there was dis- 
agreement between Jefferson and Hamilton as to how 
Genét’s propositions should be handled. Jefferson acted 
with the utmost circumspection. “I think it very ma- 
terial myself,” he wrote to the President in June, “‘to keep 
alive the friendly sentiments of that country [France] so 
far as can be done without risking war or double payment.”’ 
He suggested that instalments should be advanced at 
epochs convenient to the Treasury, and at the same time 
wrote to Genét : — 

“The instalments, as they are settled by conventions between the 
two nations, far exceed the ordinary resources of the United States. 
To accomplish them completely and punctually we are obliged to an- 
ticipate the revenues of future terms by loans to as great an extent as 
we can prudently attempt. As they are arranged however by the Con- 
vention, they give us time for successive and gradual efforts. But to 
crowd these anticipations all into a single one, and that to be executed 
in the present instant, would more than hazard that state of credit, the 
preservation of which can alone enable us to meet the different pay- 
ments at the time agreed on.” 


Jefferson’s dislike of debt, and his desire that the United 
States should be clear of it led him afterwards to philoso- 
phise on the subject and to formulate the doctrine that 
perpetual debt is inadmissible, and that a generation has 
no right to lay a tribute for its wars and extravagances upon 
posterity. His views were sometimes absurdly repre- 
resented as being favourable to repudiation; but, as he 
wrote to Washington, “no man is more ardently intent 
to see the public debt soon and sacredly paid off than I 


[ 299 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


>» 


am.”’ As time went on he began to connect public debt, 
not only with stock-jobbing and corruption, but also with 
the facilities it affords to war, and with the certainty that 
unlimited borrowing leads to oppressive taxation and 
eventually to bankruptcy. The practical upshot of his 
views is concisely summarised in a sentence written in 
1816 to Governor Plumer: “I place economy among 
the first and most important of republican virtues, and 
public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” 

The moral and economic philosophy of war debt 
is again of absorbing interest now that another ex- 
hausting war has reproduced in Europe conditions of 
bankruptcy far more desperate and menacing and on an 
infinitely larger scale than those which embarrassed the 
government of the United States in the period following 
the war of independence. By a strange turn of fortune’s 
wheel the situations of creditor and debtor have been re- 
versed. Instead of Europe complaining of American de- 
fault, and asking for payment, the United States as credi- 
tor country has been claiming a strict legal settlement of 
its loans to European governments. 

Besides the public debts of over eleven million dollars, 
mainly due to France and Holland, there were also the 
private debts of American planters and merchants to 
England, which were estimated at a much larger sum. 
Before the war it had been customary for British mer- 
chants to give a year’s credit to their correspondents in 
the Colonies. The war of course suspended payments. 
During the war and after it many of the American debtors 
became insolvent. Under the Treaty of Peace Congress 
agreed to help British citizens to recover what was due 
to them; but some of the American States passed laws 
enabling their debtors to avoid payment or to pay in 


[ 300 ] 


Public Credit and War Debts 


worthless paper money. In 1791 the British Government 
sent a representative named George Hammond, with 
whom Jefferson was before acquainted, to negotiate on 
this and other subjects arising out of the peace treaty. 
Hammond opened the matter of the debts in March, 1792, 
and Jefferson explored the whole question with his usual 
thoroughness. On May 29, 1792, he addressed to the Brit- 
ish Minister, in the form of a letter, a state paper which 
runs to nearly a hundred pages in his published works, 
and is one of the most interesting and valuable documents 
in existence on the law and philosophy of war debts. 

Hammond had collected evidence of American infrac- 
tions of the peace treaty, consisting mainly of statutes 
passed by individual States to shield debtors, and of judi- 
cial decisions denying to British subjects the right of re- 
covering what was owed to them. As different States of 
the Union had handled their war debts differently, by Acts 
prohibiting, restricting, or postponing payment, Jeffer- 
son found it necessary to deal with the subject in detail. 
But he also laid down certain general principles and con- 
siderations. 

The first was the failure of his Britannic Majesty to 
carry out all the clauses of the treaty. Jefferson recites 
British infractions which had caused losses of trade and 
property to the American Union. One of these — the 
failure to evacuate military posts on the Great Lakes — 
had ‘‘cut us off from the fur trade, which before the war 
had been always of great importance as a source of remit- 
tance for the payment of our debts to Great Britain.”’ 
Further a large number of slaves had been carried off. 
On account of this the State of Virginia (‘‘materially af- 
fected by this infraction’’) had passed various acts to re- 
lieve Virginian debtors and to suspend the discharge of 


[ 301 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


obligations to British creditors. Similar legislation had 
been passed by South Carolina. Jefferson urged in excuse 
“the desolated condition”? in which British armies had 
left that State, ‘“and the almost entire destruction” of the 
means of paying debts. Rhode Island, it appears, had 
passed a law authorizing its citizens to pay gold debts due 
to British creditors in paper money. 

A further argument called in aid by Jefferson deserves 
citation. Translated into modern politics it means that 
a state has no right to exclude by high tariffs or prohibi- 
tions the products of another state from which it is de- 
manding the payment of debts. 

“To the necessities for some delay in the payment of debts may be 
added the British commercial regulations, lessening our means of pay- 
ment by prohibiting us from carrying in our own bottoms our own prod- 
uce to their dominions in our neighbourhood, and excluding valuable 
branches of it from their home markets by prohibitory duties. The 
means of payment constitute one of the motives of purchase at the 
moment of purchase. If these means are taken away by the creditor 
himself he ought not in conscience to complain of a mere retardation 
of his debt, which is the effect of his own act.” 

Next came the question whether it was reasonable to 
expect a country, which had been reduced by war to an 
inconvertible paper currency, to pay in gold. Jefferson 
points out that as a result of the war “‘the stock of hard 
‘money, which we possessed in an ample degree at the 
beginning of the war, soon flowed into Europe for supplies 
of arms, ammunitions, and other necessaries . . . we 
were reduced then to the resource of a paper medium, and 
that completed the exile of hard money.” But though 
the American Colonists had lost their gold and silver, the 
war “‘closed with a stipulation that we should pay a large 
mass of debt in such coin.”” Upon this situation Jefferson 
commented : —' 


[ 302 ] 


Public Credit and War Debts 


“Tf the whole soil of the United States had been offered for sale 
for ready coin it would not have raised as much as would have 
satisfied this stipulation. The thing then was impossible; and reason 
and authority declare: ‘Si l’empéchement est réel, il faut donner du 
temps; car nul n’est tenual’impossible.’ (Vattel iv, 51): ‘If the obsta- 
cle be real, time must, be given, for no one is bound to an impossibility.’ 
We should with confidence have referred the case to the arbiter pro- 
posed by another jurist, who lays it down that a party ‘is not obliged 
to pay more than he can, and the decision of how much he can pay may 
be left by the other sovereign to the award of an honest arbitrator.’ ”’ 


Objection was also raised by the British Government 
“‘to the proceedings of our legislative and judicial bodies, 
that they have refused to allow interest to run on debts 
during the course of the war.”’ Jefferson replies first that 
“interest is not a part of the debt, but something added to 
the debt by way of damage for the detention of it.”” Until 
the time of Henry the Eighth interest was unlawful and 
“is still so in Roman Catholic countries.’’ And it was 
laid down by leading English authorities that ‘where, by 
a general and national calamity, nothing is made out of 
lands which are assigned for payment of interest, it ought 
not to run on during the time of such calamity.” Jefferson 
observes: “This is exactly the case in question. Cana 
more general national calamity be conceived than that 
universal devastation which took place in many of these 


States during the war?”’ He goes on to say: — 


“Under these circumstances no instrument or title of debt, however 
formal or sacred, can give right to interest. Let us present the question 
in another point of view. Your own law forbade the payment of inter- 
est when it forbade the receipt of American produce into Great Britain, 
and made that produce fair prize on its way from the debtor to the 
creditor.” 


Jefferson’s despatch was forwarded by the British Min- 
ister to be pigeon-holed by the British Foreign Office, and 
[ 303 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


during the remainder of his tenure of office the dispute 
remained in abeyance. 

This chapter on debts and public credit would give an 
incomplete view of Jefferson’s contributions as Secretary 
of State to finance and constitutional law if we omitted 
his opposition to the establishment of the Bank of the 
United States. In the 4ua he observes that Hamilton’s 
schemes were not completed by the establishment of the 
Funding System and the assumption of State debts. The 
power of the Treasury over the Legislature “would be 
lost with the loss of the individual members whom it had 
enriched, and some engine of influence more permanent 
must be contrived while these myrmidons were yet in 
place to carry it through all opposition.” This engine 
was the Bank of the United States. The Bank Bill passed 
the Senate, but met with strenuous opposition in the 
House of Representatives from Madison and his friends, 
who were beginning to form the anti-Federalist, or Re- 
publican party. When it had passed, Washington long 
hesitated to sign it, and asked the opinion of the Cabinet 
on the constitutionality of the Bill. Hamilton and Knox 
were for it; Jefferson and Randolph against it. Jeffer- 
son’s “opinion against the constitutionality of a national 
bank,” forwarded to the President on February 15, 
1791, is a landmark in the constitutional history of the 
United States. 

He starts with the principle laid down in the Tenth 
Amendment that “the powers not delegated to the United 
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” To 
step beyond the boundary thus drawn round the powers 
of Congress would be to take possession of a boundless 
field of power insusceptible of definition. The institution 


[ 304 ] 


Public Credit and War Debts 


of a Bank did not fall under such enumeration of powers 
as a power to lay taxes, or a power to borrow money, or 
a power to regulate commerce. Nor could the Bank be 
justified by the power ‘“‘to make all laws necessary and 
proper for carrying into execution the enumerated 
powers.” A Bank might facilitate the collection of taxes 
or the regulation of commerce, but it was not necessary 
for either. The Constitution did not intend to enable 
Congress to do whatever they thought good for the United 
States. For as Congress would be the sole judges, that 
would really be a power to do whatever they pleased. ‘“‘It 
was intended to lace them up straitly within the enu- 
merated powers.” 

A terse examination of the general conveniences of a 
Bank as set forth in Hamilton’s Report shows that the 
Treasury and Banks together would fulfil most of the pur- 
poses contemplated by Hamilton. As for the power of 
increasing circulating medium, that, wrote Jefferson, 
“according to my ideas of paper money is clearly a de- 
merit.’ No doubt there were advantages as well as dis- 
advantages in such an institution, but the world might 
go on very well without it; and “can it be thought that 
the Constitution intended that for a shade or two of con- 
venience more or less Congress should be authorized to 
break down the most ancient and fundamental laws of the 
several States; such as those against Mortmain, the Laws 
of Alienage, the rules of Descent, the acts of Distribution, 
the laws of Escheat and Forfeiture, the laws of Monop- 
oly ?” 

Apart from the strength and acumen of Jefferson’s 
arguments there was nothing in the opinion which 
should have given offence to Hamilton. Indeed, after 
pointing out that the negative of the President is the 


[ 305 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


shield provided by the Constitution to protect the rights 
of the Executive, the Judiciary, and the States against 
invasions of the Legislature, he added that, unless the 
President’s mind was tolerably clear that the Bill was un- 
authorised by the Constitution, “‘a just respect for the 
wisdom of the Legislature”? would naturally decide the 
balance in favour of the Bill passed by Congress. Wash- 
ington eventually signed the Bill. The Bank almost im- 
mediately paid a dividend of ten per cent on six months 
working, and another impetus was given to the stock- 
jobbing mania. But in March, 1792, so Jefferson wrote to 
Short, Bank paper stock had fallen about forty per cent 
in two or three weeks, and “‘this nefarious business”’ was 
becoming more and more detestable to the public. 

This controversy over the Bank helped to accentuate the 
lines of party cleavage. The party of Hamilton admired 
the British government and British institutions. Their 
distrust of the French Revolution was developing into 
aversion and horror. The party of Jefferson disliked the 
British monarchy and aristocracy, and rejoiced that the 
French Revolution was setting up republican equality 
and liberty in Europe. The party of Hamilton favoured 
a strong and active government, was not averse to debt, 
and had no objection to increasing taxation. It was pre- 
pared, as it soon showed, to put sharp constraints upon 
individual liberty and to make unsparing use of military 
force. Jefferson and his friends stood for State rights and 
the liberty of the individual, for low taxes, and for an 
army on the smallest possible scale. In Jefferson’s eyes 
militarism was not only burdensome to the citizens, but 
dangerous to the supremacy of law. To these divisions, 
which in themselves were quite sufficient to provide an 
honest foundation for a two-party system — indeed it 


[ 306 | 


Public Credit and War Debts 


were to be wished that some modern party differences 
were half as real — the Federalists and Republicans were 
now at issue about the construction of the Constitution. 
The former, fearful of disunion, inclined to a liberal con- 
struction which would enlarge the Federal authority; 
their opponents, mainly from the Southern States, pre- 
ferred a more strict and literal interpretation which would 
keep the new government to the letter of its charter, and 
secure their rights and powers to the several States of 
the Union. 


[ 307 ] 


CHAPTER IV 


JEFFERSON'S FOREIGN POLICY 


“Courage belongs to negotiation as well as to operations in the field.” 
— Burke 


NY perme a Foreign Secretary is encompassed by 


permanent secretaries, private secretaries, assist- 

ant secretaries, clerks, and shorthand writers. 
Jefferson did his own work, wrote his own despatches, 
thought out his reports, and employed his knowledge of 
European diplomacy 


“to settle peace, or to unfold 


The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled.’ 


He enjoyed the confidence of Washington, and so far as 
one can judge from correspondence and memoirs, he stead- 
ily resisted those temptations to secrecy which have been 
the bane of so many European Chancelleries. Neither 
Washington nor his colleagues in the Cabinet ever had 
cause to complain that Jefferson had practised any eva- 
sion, or failed to bring forward any matter of public im- 
portance. With all the art and craft of an accomplished 
diplomatist, with fine manners and address, with immense 
knowledge of the world and of all the news that could be 
collected, Jefferson united perfect loyalty to the President, 
to the spirit of representative institutions and to the citi- 
zens of the United States, whose servant he professed and 
endeavoured to be. His policy in so far as it had a bias 
was influenced by fidelity to republicanism, friendship for 


[ 308 ] 


Jefferson’s Foreign Policy 


France, and a desire to promote human liberty and free 
institutions whenever those high aims were consistent with 
the peace and welfare of his own country. He was a jeal- 
ous champion of American rights and interests on the 
Continent, and especially in the Mississippi Valley. His 
policy towards the Indians was based upon principles of 
justice and fair dealing. His conduct of delicate affairs 
with unfriendly governments was always tactful and pru- 
dent. He knew how to maintain the dignity of his coun- 
try and to sustain its interests without provocation. In 
every controversy he maintained a sense of proportion 
and of the distinction between attainable and unattainable 
objects. All his negotiations were qualified by a firm con- 
viction that peace was the greatest of all American in- 
terests. 

Towards the claims of the Spaniards to monopolise 
the navigation of the Mississippi Jefferson however op- 
posed an unyielding negative. In these claims he never 
would acquiesce. His negotiations with the Spanish Gov- 
ernment went on until he left office, nor was this vexed 
question settled until, ten years later, President Jefferson 
by a stroke of genius effected the purchase of Louisiana. 

Of his controversy with Great Britain and its able rep- 
resentative Hammond over the debts, an account has been 
given in the previous chapter. 

But the proclamation of the French Republic in Sep- 
tember, 1792, the execution of the King in the following 
January, and the outbreak of war between France and 
England a month later, threw all other troubles and 
anxieties into the background. These menacing events 
made it difficult for Jefferson to persist in his intention of 
retiring. The President’s expostulations and entreaties 
were supported by a consideration pressed on him by his 


[ 309 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


friends — so he wrote on January 26, 1793 —‘‘that my 
retirement, when I had been attacked in the public papers, 
would injure me in the eyes of the public, who would sup- 
pose I either withdrew from investigation, or because I 
had not tone of mind sufficient to meet slander.” 

In February he promised the President to continue 
until the summer or autumn, but rejected the proposal 
that he should ‘coalesce’ with Hamilton. Early in April 
came the news that the French, after their ambassador 
had been expelled from London, had declared war on Great 
Britain. Republicanism was now arrayed against mon- 
archy, nobility, feudalism, and serfdom. It called on all 
peoples to unite against their oppressors and vindicate 
the Rights of Man. The Jacobins of Paris supposed that, 
because among the middle class dissenters and working 
men of England there was a strong body of reformers, 
therefore England was ripe for revolution. They were 
much mistaken. The excesses of the last eight months 
had alarmed property and alienated moral and religious 
feeling in England. The nation, pugnacious, obstinate, 
attached to its own customs and institutions, was far 
more inclined to make war on its hereditary foe than to 
receive French notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity 
from doctrinaires, whose mathematical formulas were 
sharpened and enforced by the guillotine. So began the 
long exhausting struggle which sank all Europe into 
pauperism and dominated American politics for the next 
twenty-three years. 

In the United States the proclamation of a Republic 
in France had been received with almost general rejoicings. 
Their own example had been followed by the allies to 
whom they owed their national emancipation. Pride and 
gratitude were united in an emotional enthusiasm, which 


[ 310 ] 


Jefferson’s Foreign Policy 


even the news of massacres and executions failed to ex- 
tinguish. Until the following summer American sentiment 
was predominantly pro-French. But for Washington and 
Jefferson the country would probably have plunged head- 
long into ruin. One held the balance; the other restrained 
the warlike proclivities of republican extremists. Wash- 
ington was at Mount Vernon when he heard that France 
and England were at war, and at once hurried to meet 
his Cabinet in Philadelphia. What was to be done? The 
United States had made treaties with the French Mon- 
archy, which guaranteed the French West Indies in case 
of a war and also gave privileges to French prizes. Wash- 
ington’s Cabinet had to consider whether the treaties were 
binding; if so, should they be suspended; if not, would 
they involve necessarily breaches of neutrality and war 
with England? Could the French Republic be regarded 
as firmly established, and should its new Minister, Citizen 
Genét, who had been appointed to supersede M. de Ter- 
nant in the United States, be recognized and received by 
Washington as the fully accredited representative of the 
French nation? 

After a Cabinet consultation Washington asked his 
colleagues for written opinions on the general question 
“whether the United States have a right to renounce their 
treaties with France, or to hold them suspended until the 
Government of that country shall be established.”’ Ham- 
ilton had argued that they were entitled to renounce or 
suspend the treaties; that the new French Minister should 
not be received without qualifications, and further that 
the United States could not preserve their neutrality un- 
less the treaties with France were either renounced or 
suspended. On this Jefferson submitted (April 28, 1793) 
an opinion equally to be admired for its strength, learn- 


[311 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


ing, and subtlety. After summarising the positions taken 
up by Hamilton and acknowledging their ingenuity, he 
proceeds to lay down “the principles which, according to 


>? 


my understanding, govern the case” : — 


“I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the 
source of all authority in that nation, as free to transact their common 
concerns by any agents they think proper, to change those agents indi- 
vidually, or the organisation of them in form or function, whenever 
they please; that all the acts done by those agents under the authority 
of the nation are the acts of the nation, are obligatory on them, and 
enure to their use, and can in no wise be annulled or affected by any 
change in the form of the government or of the persons administering 
it. Consequently the treaties between the United States and France 
were not treaties between the United States and Louis Capet, but be- 
tween the two nations of America and France; and the nations re- 
maining in existence, though both of them have since changed their 
forms of government, the treaties are not annulled by these changes.” 


Proceeding next to the dangers anticipated from allow- 
ing the treaties with France to subsist, Jefferson shows 
them to be exaggerated or fanciful. The treaties as a whole 
are not incompatible with that “fair neutrality”? which 
should be the object of American policy, and the question 
of withdrawing from the guarantee clause in regard to the 
French West Indies can be considered if and when the 
danger anticipated actually becomes imminent. Besides, 
to disavow the treaties “without just cause or Compensa- 
tion,” would give France a cause for war and force America 
into association with her enemies. “An injured friend is 
the bitterest of foes.” 

Hamilton had hooked his policy to an oditer dictum of 
Vattel ! that where one party to a Treaty of Alliance so 
changes its form of government as to “‘render the alliance 
useless, dangerous, or disagreeable to the other,” that 


1See Vattel, II, § 197. 
[ 312 | 


Jefferson’s Foreign Policy 


other “‘is free to renounce the alliance.’ After proving 
that this quotation was at variance, not only with the 
opinions of Grotius and other writers on international 
law, but with Vattel’s general insistence on the sanctity 
of treaties, Jefferson proceeds to crush his adversary :— 

“But even had this doctrine been as true as it is manifestly false, it 
would have been asked, to whom is it that the treaties with France 
have been disagreeable? How will it be proved that they are useless ? 

“ The conclusion of the sentence [from Vattel] suggests a reflection 
too strong to be suppressed: ‘for the party may say with truth, that 
it would not have allied itself with this nation, if it had been under the 
present form of its government.’ The republic of the United States 
allied itself with France when under a despotic government. She 
changes her government, declares it shall be a republic extremely free, 
and, in the meantime, is governing herself as such. And it is proposed 
that America shall declare the treaties void, because ‘it may say with 
truth that it would not have allied itself with that nation if it had been 
under the present form of government!’ Who is the American who can 
say with truth, that he would not have allied himself with France if 
she had been a republic, or that a republic of any form would be as 
disagreeable as her ancient despotism?” 


Upon the whole, therefore, Jefferson advised Washington 
that the treaties with France were still binding, that the 
Minister from France should be received, and that his 
reception would not “take from us that right which exists 
at all times of liberating ourselves when an adherence to 
the treaties would be ruinous or destructive to the society’ 
for whose safety and protection the American constitution 
and government existed. 

Washington recognised the force of Jefferson’s argu- 
ment and accepted its practical consequences. He decided 
that the validity of the treaties was not impaired by the 
change of government in France, and that the new Minis- 
ter should be received without condition or qualifications. 

On April 8, Edmond Genét arrived at Charleston in 


[313 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


the French frigate, L’Embuscade. Her figure-head was a 
liberty cap; her rigging was emblazoned with warnings 
to tyrants and appeals to republican sentiment. Genét 
decided to complete his journey by land, while the ship 
proceeded to Philadelphia. On her way she captured two 
British vessels and brought them into port amid immense 
popular enthusiasm, her salute of 15 guns being an- 
swered by field pieces on Market Street Wharf, fired by 
volunteers in sympathy with the French cause. 
On May 5, Jefferson wrote to Monroe : — 


“All the old spirit of 1776 is rekindling. The newspapers, from 
Boston to Charleston, prove this, and even the monocrat papers are 
obliged to publish the most furious philippics against England. A 
French frigate took an English prize off the Capes of Delaware the 
other day, and sent her up here. Upon her coming into sight, thousands 
and thousands of the yeomanry of the city crowded and covered the 
wharves. Never before was such a crowd seen there; and when the 
British colours were seen reversed, and the French flying above them, 
they burst into peals of exultation. I wish we may be able to repress 
the spirit of the people within the limits of a fair neutrality.” 


For preserving this, as he tells both Monroe and Madison, 
and avoiding a rupture with France he was constantly 
indebted to the President; for Randolph could not be 
counted on, so that the votes in the Cabinet were generally 
‘two and a half against one and a half.’ Poor Randolph 
— whose ingenious compromises sometimes proved useful 
to the President — had ‘no colour of his own’, wrote 
Jefferson a little later during the height of the trouble with 
Genét: ‘“‘when he is with me, he is a whig; when with 
Hamilton, he is a tory; when he is with the President, 
he is what he thinks will please him.’”’ This character 
of their kinsman was neatly rolled up by John Randolph 
of Roanoke in a mordant metaphor: ‘the chameleon 
on the aspen — always trembling, always changing.” 


[314] 


Jefferson’s Foreign Policy 


The story of Edmond Genét’s embassy to the United 
States has been told in a long and lively chapter by Par- 
ton. Here we must be content with a brief outline. 
Thanks to his sister, who was chief lady to Marie Antoi- 
nette and stood high in the favour of the Court, Genét had 
risen rapidly in the diplomatic service of Louis. He had 
embraced republican ideas, but had been chivalrous 
enough to support Paine’s project of getting the King and 
Queen away to America. To his republicanism and his 
mastery of the English tongue he owed this appointment 
to the United States, where his blazing indiscretions, cal- 
culated and uncalculated, soon drove Jefferson almost to 
distraction. After being féted at Charleston, Genét made 
a triumphal progress by land to Philadelphia, where he 
was welcomed on May 16 by pealing bells, cheering 
crowds, and a deputation of leading republicans headed by 
Rittenhouse. His first speech was captivating and com- 
paratively prudent, for he declared: ‘France does not 
expect that you should become a party in the war.” But 
from this time onwards his proceedings became more and 
more inconvenient to the American Government. Depu- 
tations, banquets with hymns and toasts to liberty, the 
singing of the ‘ Marseillaise,’ an entertainment on the Em- 
buscade at which the Governor of Pennsylvania was prin- 
cipal guest, fraternisations of French sailors with the citi- 
zens, were not relished by the British Minister. The 
Federalists got up a counter banquet with toasts to the 
four Georges — George the Third and his son, George 
Washington, and George Hammond, at which moderation 
and neutrality were inculcated and Hamilton was not 
obscurely indicated as the true Patriot Minister. 


1 Parton’s Life of Thomas Jefferson, Chapter 50. 


[315 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Washington had issued a proclamation of neutrality on 
April 22; but in spite of this Genét assumed the right 
to fit out privateers, and to sell prizes in American ports, 
and even to grant commissions to American citizens to 
prey upon British commerce. Jefferson saw that this 
would never do. “I fear,” he wrote to Madison, “‘that 
fair neutrality will prove a disagreeable pill to our friends, 
though necessary to keep us out of the calamities of war.” 

All through June and July Jefferson was trying to con- 
ciliate and restrain Genét; but his intemperate language, 
his turbulent conduct, his insolent pretensions, his dis- 
respect for law and authority, made it necessary in August 
to apply for his dismissal. ‘‘Never in my opinion,” wrote 
Jefferson to Madison on July 8, “‘was so calamitous an ap- 
pointment made as that of the present Minister of France 
here.” Genét, he says, was ‘hot headed, all imagination, 
no judgment, passionate, disrespectful, and even indecent 
towards the president.’ In the middle of August he wrote 
to Gouverneur Morris, American Minister in France, to 
demand Genét’s recall. The request was granted. But 
instead of returning to a French prison Genét fell in love 
with Cornelia, daughter of George Clinton, the republican 
governor of the State of New York, and lived happily 
ever afterwards, a worthy citizen devoted to agriculture 
and science. 

At the end of July Jefferson had again begged the Presi- 
dent for leave to retire. Again he gave way to pressure; 
but this time a final date was fixed, and the President 
reluctantly agreed to dispense with his services at the end 
of the year, saying: “‘like a man going to the gallows I 
am willing to put it off as long as I can.” 

The popular effervescence in Philadelphia began to die 
down towards the end of the summer, and in August an 


[ 316 | 


Jefferson’s Foreign Policy 


outbreak of yellow fever in the city caused a general exo- 
dus. In the first week of September the Cabinet made 
haste to depart to their homes. By that time American 
neutrality in the war had been firmly established. Jeffer- 
son, braving the epidemic — which had attacked Hamil- 
ton — stayed to clear his letter files. On the 17th of Sep- 
tember he started home, and after stopping on the 22d 
at Mount Vernon to see Washington, arrived at Monti- 
cello on the 25th. The Cabinet was summoned to Ger- 
mantown on November. By that time the yellow fever 
had abated, and Congress met again at Philadelphia 
on December 2. On the 21st Washington, who through- 
out the year had pretty consistently followed Jefferson’s 
advice against Hamilton and Knox — on one important 
occasion against Hamilton, Knox, and Randolph combined 
— made a last effort to induce Jefferson to stay. But this 
time his Secretary of State was inexorable, and on Decem- 
ber 31 he wrote his letter of resignation, concluding: 
“TI carry into my retirement a lively sense of your good- 
ness, and shall continue gratefully to remember it.’’ The 
President’s reply (January 1, 1794) ran as follows: — 


“TI yesterday received with sincere regret your resignation of the 
office of Secretary of State. Since it has been impossible to prevail upon 
you to forego any longer the indulgence of your desire for private life, 
the event, however anxious I am to avert it, must be submitted to. 

“But I cannot suffer you to leave your station without assuring you, 
that the opinion which I had formed of your integrity and talents, and 
which dictated your original nomination, has been confirmed by the 
fullest experience; and that both have been eminently displayed in the 
discharge of your duty. 

“Tet a conviction of my most earnest prayers for your happiness ac- 
company you in your retirement; and while I accept, with the warmest 
thanks, your solicitude for my welfare, I beg you to believe that I am 
dear sir, etc.” 


eiz 


Thomas Jefferson 


On January 5 Jefferson set out from Philadelphia for 
Monticello, feeling like a prisoner released from a dun- 
geon. In his Life of Washington John Marshall relaxes for 
a moment from an almost uniform bias against Jefferson 
to tell his readers that “this gentleman withdrew from 
political station at a moment when he stood particularly 
high in the esteem of his own countrymen.” 

A few weeks afterwards Congress published Jefferson’s 
correspondence with Genét and Hammond. Its tone de- 
lighted patriotic men of both parties, and if it did not sat- 
isfy extremists, yet the publication — as Marshall puts 
it — considerably lessened for a time the hostilities of his 
enemies without diminishing the attachment of his friends. 
Thus our tired gladiator left the arena with enhanced 
reputation, after many harassing conflicts from which 
neither credit nor glory could have been anticipated. 


BOOK V 
PRINCIPLES AND PARTIES 


Ges UME Ba a oh 
IN RETIREMENT 


Frugibus alternis, non consule, computat annos; 
Auctumnum pomis, ver sibi flore notat. 


By crops not consuls he the year computes; 
Spring by its flowers, the autumn by its fruits. 
— CLAuDIAN’s OLD FARMER OF VERONA 


to regain — as he fondly hoped and intended for the 

remainder of his life — the freedom of a private citi- 
zen, Jefferson’s rural felicity lasted nearly three years. 
At the end of 1796 he was elected Vice President of the 
United States and took office on March 4, 1797. He 
had not yet completed his fiftieth year, but his health of 
mind and body had suffered from worry and overwork. 
Sick of the drudgeries of office and of contention with 
Hamilton, he seems to have mistaken weariness and fa- 
tigue for a permanent debility. At any rate he was in 
earnest about retiring from active politics. His affairs 
badly needed personal attention, and he found more con- 
genial occupation on his estate, in his garden, library, and 
workshops than in the office of Secretary of State. His 
beautiful daughter Maria was 16; Martha, the elder, was 
already mother of a son, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. In 


[319 | 


FF’: January 16, 1794, when he reached Monticello 


Thomas Jefferson 


their society and that of many friends the Squire of Mon- 
ticello took great delight. 

There is no foundation except malice for the oft-repeated 
assertion that withdrawal from office was merely a cun- 
ning move in the political game with an eye to the leader- 
ship of the republican party and the Presidency. It would 
of course be a poor compliment to Jefferson to confound 
retirement with a stolid indifference to public affairs. But 
that it was his deliberate intention not to intermeddle 
with politics, and that he pursued it until the pressure of 
friends and the logic of events forced him back into the 
fray is incontestible. In the latest and largest collection 
of his published correspondence we find but nine short 
letters for 1794 and the same number for 1795. And even 
in these few political allusions are scanty, and there is no 
sign whatever of a gladiator’s craving to return to 
the arena. “I return to farming,” he wrote, April 25, 
1794, ‘with an ardour which I scarcely knew in my youth, 
and which has got the better entirely of my love of study. 
Instead of writing ten or twelve letters a day, which I have 
been in the habit of doing as a thing in course, I put off 
answering my letters now, farmer-like, till a rainy day.” 
To Edmund Randolph, his successor in office, he quoted 
Montaigne’s saying that ignorance is the softest pillow 
on which a man can rest his head; adding that he allows 
himself only one political topic, the corrupt subservience 
of a section of Congressmen to the Treasury. 

Not that Monticello could cease to be a resort of politi- 
clans even when its master turned farmer. Though he dis- 
continued his Philadelphia newspapers, Madison, Giles, 
and other political friends kept him posted in the news from 
the seat of government. He had left behind him a mas- 
terly report on Foreign Commerce, a sort of political 


[ 320 ] 


In Retirement 


legacy to his party, which provoked hot debates between 
Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians in Congress. About this 
time the British Orders in Council struck so hard at the 
commerce of neutrals that a wave of indignation swept 
over the country; and the ‘Monocrats’ were still further 
confounded when the French Republic, hard pressed and 
eager for American aid, cleverly responded by throwing 
open its West Indian Islands to the trade of the United 
States. It was an awkward moment for Washington’s 
administration. Hamilton was against war with England, 
but welcomed any excuse to increase naval and military 
armaments. Jefferson knew that a section of Republican 
Jingoes would favour a declaration of war; for it would 
gratify at the same time an old grudge and a new enthu- 
siasm. But he hoped it would not come to that, and told 
his friends that they should try to enforce neutral rights 
in a peaceable way. The monocrats and paper men in 
Congress, he wrote to Madison, did not want war, but 
they wanted armies and debts; and although there was a 
republican majority in Congress on most questions “yet I 
have always observed that in questions of expense, where 
members may hope either for offices or for jobs for them- 
selves or their friends, some few will be debauched; and 
that is sufficient to turn the decision where a majority 
is at most but small.’’ News of French victories gave 
hope that the armies of the invading tyrants would be 
destroyed, and that the Kings, nobles, and priests, who 
were warring against the French Revolution and human 
nature, would be brought to the scaffold. “I am still 
warm,” he wrote on May 1, “‘whenever I think of these 
scoundrels, though I do it as seldom as I can, preferring 
infinitely to contemplate the tranquil growth of my lucerne 
and potatoes. I have so completely withdrawn myself 


[ 321 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


from these spectacles of usurpation and misrule that I do 
not take a single newspaper nor read one a month; and I 
feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”” Sympathy with 
the republican cause in Europe had to be reconciled with 
an overmastering sense of the calamities which war would 
bring upon the Union. “I love peace,” he wrote, “and Iam 
anxious that we should give the world still another useful 
lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing in- 
juries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the 
punisher as to the sufferer.” He therefore recommended 
to his friends in Congress as an alternative that they 
should cut off commerce with England until her outrages 
on neutral trade were abandoned. A Non-Importation Bill 
was actually carried in the House of Representatives. Its 
defeat in the Senate, May, 1794, made Jefferson so angry 
that he began to talk of a movement for shortening the 
Senatorial term, and even to wonder whether the second 
chamber ought not to drop out of the Constitution. 
Writing to President Washington, with whom he re- 
mained in friendly communication, Jefferson supported 
the embargo policy on the ground that justice on the seas 
could only be extorted from the British government by 
distressing British commerce; but most of the letter 
was devoted to explaining a new and improved system 
of manuring and rotating crops by which he hoped 
gradually to rescue his plantations from their wretched 
condition. ‘Slow and sure,’ Washington’s maxim, was 
as good, he said, for agriculture as for politics. Mean- 
while Washington, missing Jefferson sorely, endeavoured 
through Randolph to tempt him back to office; but 
Jefferson was inflexible; though he rejoiced, as he said, 
in declining this overture, to retain the esteem and ap- 
probation of the President. Their good relations were 


ieeo \] 


In Retirement 


however to be shaken at the end of the year, when Wash- 
ington was induced to denounce the democratic societies 
which had sprung up on French models in many American 
towns. Jefferson contrasted these clubs with their rivals, 
the Cincinnati, whose love of hereditary distinctions and 
secret meetings in all parts of the Union were very alarm- 
ing to the friends of democracy. It is wonderful indeed, 
wrote Jefferson to Madison, December 28, 1794, “‘that 
the president should have permitted himself to be the 
organ of such an attack upon the freedom of discussion, 
the freedom of writing, printing, and publishing.” 
Another act of the Administration, which ruffled his 
bucolic repose, sprang from disturbances among the un- 
ruly inhabitants of western Pennsylvania, who had re- 
belled against Hamilton’s excise law. No less than 15,000 
militiamen were requisitioned from the governors of New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia at great 
expense to put down what was described as an insurrec- 
tion, but which Jefferson thought was no more than riotous 
demonstrations against an unpopular impost. Evidently 
repressive measures were in fashion. But Jefferson did 
not despair. ‘“The time is coming,” he wrote to Madison 
(December 28), ““when we shall fetch up the leeway of our 
vessel.”” The Republican majority in the House of Repre- 
sentatives was growing; his only fear was that Madison 
might follow his own example of retirement, before ‘the 
Augean herd’ was purged of its impurities. ‘““Hold on 
then, my dear friend, that we may not shipwreck in the 
meanwhile. I do not see, in the minds of those with whom 
I converse, a greater affliction than the fear of your re- 
tirement. But this must not be, unless to a more splendid, 
and a more efficacious post. There I should rejoice to 
see you. I have long had much in my mind to say to you 


[ 323 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


on that subject.”” He meant that Madison should be 
Republican candidate for the presidency, and added in 
reference to another suggestion, which was appearing in 
the newspapers: “‘I would not give up my own retirement 
for the empire of the universe.”’ 

Correspondence with Madison on this subject was re- 
sumed a few months later. Republican sentiment had 
already crowned Jefferson President, and it was repre- 
sented to him that his refusal of office should not and could 
not apply to that of Chief Magistrate. But Jefferson re- 
plied that his retirement meant from all office high or low, 
without exception. When he was Secretary of State, Fed- 
eralist newspapers had forced him to consider the matter 
by constantly insinuating that he was relinquishing one 
office only in order to scheme for another and higher one. 
The idea being thus presented ““my own quiet required 
that I should face it and examine it.’’ He did so ‘thor- 
oughly,’ and decided that his reasons for retiring from 
office ‘operated more strongly against that which was 
insinuated to be my object.” Since then his health had 
broken down; his private affairs required close attention ; 
above all, the delights he felt in the society of his family 
and in agricultural pursuits had confirmed his resolution. 
“The little spice of ambition, that I had in my younger 
days, has long since evaporated.”’ In stating these rea- 
sons he was not opening the door to future discussion ; 
“the question is forever closed with me.”’ His sole object 
was to prevent any division or loss of votes, which might 
be fatal to the republican interest. They must concen- 
trate all their strength on one object. “Who this should 
be, is a question I can more freely discuss with anybody 
than yourself. In this I painfully feel the loss of Monroe.” 
The President, in one of his last efforts to balance appoint- 


[ 324 ] 


In Retirement 


ments, had sent Monroe, a fervent Republican, as Minis- 
ter to Paris, while Jay, the Chief Justice, an equally strong 
Federalist, went to London to angle for a commercial 
treaty which might restrain naval encroachments on 
American trade and obviate war with England. 

The end of Washington’s second term was approaching ; 
and the question who should be Republican candidate 
when he retired must have been under discussion with 
Madison, Giles, and other prominent Republicans who 
visited Monticello during the year. Exactly how and 
when the Favourite was induced to enter for the race we 
do not know. In the spring, when Giles announced a 
visit, Jefferson told him that he would have to discuss 
farming. “‘I shall talk with you about it from morning 
till night, and-put you on very short allowance as to polit- 
ical aliment.”’ In August, 1795, he refused an invitation 
from Mann Page to attend a conference on education at 
Fredericksburg, although “if anything could ever induce 
me to sleep another night out of my own house it would 
have been your friendly invitation, and my solicitude for 
the subject of it, the education of our youth.” He was 
most anxious that all the children of Virginia should learn 
enough to understand as citizens what was going on in 
the world and keep their own country right; for nothing 
could keep it right but their own vigilant and distrustful 
superintendence: “I do not believe with the Roche- 
foucaulds and Montaignes that fourteen men out of fifteen 
are rogues. I believe a great abatement from that pro- 
portion may be made in favour of general honesty.”’ Un- 
fortunately in government rogues were apt to be upper- 
most and to “‘nestle themselves into places of power and 
profit.” They began by stealing the people’s good opin- 
ions and then stole from them the right of withdrawing 


[ 325 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


it, by contriving laws and associations against popular 
power. 

Jay had just concluded a treaty with England which was 
thought to be extremely unfavourable and even humiliat- 
ing to the United States. Jefferson at once denounced its 
terms. The Republicans raised a storm of protest, and 
meetings were held all over the country. Washington 
hesitated to ratify the treaty; but in the autumn Hamil- 
ton flew to its defence in a series of articles which ap- 
peared under two of his pseudonyms, Curtius and Camil- 
lus. On receiving copies Jefferson gave one or two by 
way of experiment, so he told Madison (September 21, 
1795), to honest sound-hearted men of common under- 
standing, and they were not able to parry the sophistry 
of Curtius : — 

“T have ceased therefore to give them. Hamilton is really a colossus 
to the anti-republican party. Without numbers he is a host within 
himself. They [the Federalists] have got themselves into a defile, where 
they might be finished; but too much security on the republican part 
will give time to his talents and his indefatigableness to extricate them. 
We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth, 
when he comes forward, there is nobody but yourself who can meet 
him. . . . For God’s sake, take up your pen and give a fundamental 
reply to Curtius and Camillus.” 

This interesting letter shows that Hamilton and the 
President together had stemmed the outcry against the 
treaty, and that the merchants, who had at first joined 
in it, were returning to their party allegiance. In truth, 
though Jay’s diplomacy had not been clever, the treaty 
from a commercial point of view was much better than an 
embargo, and infinitely preferable to war. A constitu- 
tional controversy arose when the House of Representa- 
tives expressed their disapproval of the treaty. Jefferson 
thought they were right; but was glad that a proposed 


[ 326 | 


In Retirement 


censure of the President was dropped, for Washington, 
he said, when he errs, “‘errs with integrity.”’ Jefferson did 
not of course dispute that treaty-making belonged to the 
President and the Senate; but when a treaty was made 
involving matters confided to the three branches of the 
legislature conjointly, “the Representatives are as free 
as the President and Senate were to consider whether the 
national interest requires or forbids their giving the forms 
and force of law to the articles over which they have a 
power.” The struggle over the Jay treaty, and republican 
criticisms of the President for his action in this matter, as 
well as for his denunciation of the democratic societies, 
helped to identify Washington more and more with the 
Federalist party; and this bias was strengthened by the 
fall of Edmund Randolph, who was found by an inter- 
cepted letter guilty of misconduct in his negotiations with 
the French Government. On reading the pamphlet which 
Randolph afterwards issued in his defence, Jefferson ab- 
solved him of corruption, but expressed little sympathy 
for a professed supporter who had often let him down in 
Washington’s Cabinet. This affair and a letter of Wash- 
ington’s, which had reflected on the Republican friends 
of France as partisans of war and confusion, led Jefferson 
to anticipate the recall of Monroe from Paris. Monroe 
had got on famously for a time. He had been kissed by 
the President of the French Republic, and had procured 
Paine’s release from prison. But the Jay treaty put an 
end to his popularity ; troubles with France took the place 
of troubles with England; and in the following summer 
Jefferson’s prediction was fulfilled. Monroe returned, and 
soon afterwards, smarting under the reproofs of Pickering, 
an acrid Hamiltonian, who had succeeded Randolph in 
the Department of State, published his case against the 


i327'] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Administration in a formidable pamphlet of five hundred 
pages, which Jefferson pronounced ‘unanswerable.’ 

Early in 1796, Jefferson, drawn back by irresistible 
forces into the political turmoil, began to direct the policy 
and tactics of the Republican party. A letter to Madison 
in March deals with public finance. Hamilton’s object, 
he says, from the beginning was to throw it into forms 
which should be utterly undecipherable. He was never 
able to give a clear view of the debt, or whether it was 
being diminished or increased. Jefferson thought it had 
been increased at the rate of about a million dollars an- 
nually during Washington’s first administration. Hamil- 
ton had resigned at the beginning of the year; but the 
muddle remained : — 


“Tf Mr. Gallatin would undertake to reduce this chaos to order, 
present us with a clear view of our finances, and put them into a form 
as simple as they will admit, he will merit immortal honour. The ac- 
counts of the United States ought to be, and may be made, as simple 
as those of a common farmer, and capable of being understood by com- 
mon farmers.” 


The modern farmer, in England at any rate, is cele- 
brated for not keeping any accounts at all. But whether 
Jefferson overrated the intelligence of the common 
farmer or not, his object was a good one from the public 
point of view, and full of party wisdom. A party without 
clear and sound financial principles is only half-baked. 
In hitting upon Gallatin to carry out his policy Jefferson 
showed remarkable discernment. Gallatin mastered every 
department of public finance; he cleared up the mysteries 
in which Hamilton had wrapped it, and was to prove 
himself as Jefferson’s right-hand man at the Treasury a 
ruthless foe of extravagance and a true friend of the 
American taxpayer. It is a curious fact that the two most 


[ 328 ] 


In Retirement 


celebrated secretaries of the United States Treasury were 
both aliens; for Hamilton was born in the British West 
Indies, and Gallatin in Switzerland. Jefferson was well 
aware that a party which was to advocate a reduction of 
taxation must not get itself mixed up with projects of new 
expenditure; accordingly in this same letter we find him 
advising Madison not to proceed with some proposals he 
had put forward for federal expenditure on post roads. 
He thought that such proposals would be a source of 
boundless patronage to the executive and a bottomless 
abyss for public money. It would lead to jobbing among 
Congressmen, and a scramble as to who could get the most 
money wasted in his own State. 

A few days later Jefferson despatched another sugges- 
tion to his party in Congress, this time to W. B. Giles, a 
doughty debater, who had been a thorn in Hamilton’s 
side: — 


“We are in suspense here,” he wrote, “to see the fate of Mr. Pitt’s 
Bill against democratic societies. I wish extremely to get the true his- 
tory of this effort to suppress freedom of meeting, speaking, writing 
and printing. Your acquaintance with Sedgwick will enable you to do 
it. Pray get the outlines of the Bill he intended to have brought in for 
this purpose. This will enable us to judge whether we have the merit 
of the invention, whether we were really beforehand with the British 
minister on this subject; whether he took his hint from our proposition 
or whether the concurrence in the sentiment is merely the result of the 
general truth that great men will think alike and act alike, though with- 
out intercommunication.” 


Jefferson’s humour was often of the genus sardonicum. 
A republican suggestion that American merchantmen 
should be armed to resist impressment did not meet with 
his approval. As an alternative he suggested that they 
might lay a duty of a penny a yard on British osnaburgs 


[ 329 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


and expend the proceeds in employing agents to extricate 
American seamen from British service. 

Henceforward Jefferson’s correspondence is mainly po- 
litical; but we learn from the letter to Giles that he was 
busy with architecture. He had begun the demolition of 
his house, and he hoped (with his usual optimism) to get 
through its ‘re-edification’ in the course of the summer. 

Three months later Jefferson had two French visitors. 
The first was the Comte de Volney, author of the then 
famous Ruins of Empire, a hot Republican, who had been 
thrown into prison by Robespierre. Volney was followed 
by the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, a liberal- 
minded Aristocrat, who had fled from Marat’s proscrip- 
tions. Rochefoucauld arrived at Monticello on June 22, 
and stayed for a week. He has left us an interesting ac- 
count of his visit in a volume of travels : — 


“The house,” he wrote, “stands on the summit of the mountain, and 
the taste and arts of Europe have been consulted in the formation of its 
plan. Mr. Jefferson had commenced its construction before the Ameri- 
can revolution; since that epoch his tife has been constantly engaged 
in public affairs, and he has been unable to complete the execution of 
his whole design. The finished part of the building has suffered from 
the suspension of the work; and Mr. Jefferson, who two years ago re- 
sumed the habits and leisure of private life, is now continuing his orig- 
inal plan and even improving on it. He intends that the building shall 
consist of only one storey crowned with balustrades. A dome is to be 
constructed in the centre.” 


Rochefoucauld declares that even the first Monticello 
was infinitely superior to all other American houses in 
point of taste and convenience. But at his first essay 
Jefferson had only studied art and architecture in books. 
His travels in Europe had since supplied him with models, 
“and his new plan, the execution of which is already much 
advanced, will be accomplished before the end of next 


[ 330 | 


In Retirement 


year, when his house will certainly deserve to be ranked 
with the most pleasant mansions in France and England.”’ 
The Frenchman was taken over the farm and initiated into 
Jefferson’s theories of agriculture and system of rotation. 
Jefferson, it appears, was mathematically precise in all 
his operations. He divided all his cultivated land into 
four farms of equal size, with seven fields of forty acres 
apiece. Each farm was under a separate bailiff, who em- 
ployed on it four negroes, four negresses, four oxen, and 
four horses. Jefferson showed his guest a wonderful 
threshing machine invented in Scotland. It weighed less 
than two thousand pounds, could be conveyed from one 
farm to another in a wagon, and could thrash over 120 
bushels a day. He also showed him the white weevil, 
which deposited its eggs in the ears of the grain and made 
it necessary to thrash the corn immediately after harvest. 
At this time Jefferson sold his wheat to merchants at 
Milton or Charlottesville, who shipped it to Richmond. 
Money was very scarce in the district and bank notes were 
unknown, trade being carried on chiefly by barter. 
Rochefoucauld found his host of an easy and obliging 
temper. His conversation was most agreeable, and 
his stock of information unsurpassed. There was no 
sign of politics. When he arrived, Jefferson was hard 
at work directing the harvesting operations, undeterred 
by the scorching heat of the sun. It is pleasant to 
record the traveller’s impression of the slaves on the 
estate. They were fed, clothed, and treated as well as 
white servants could be. Practically everything was 
made on the farm. Among the slaves were not only 
agricultural labourers but cabinet makers, carpenters, 
bricklayers, masons, and smiths. Some of the black chil- 
dren were employed in a nail factory, and some of the 


[ 331 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


negresses in spinning. Their master animated them by 
rewards and distinctions. “‘In fine, his superior mind 
directs the management of his domestic concerns with 
the same ability, activity, and regularity which he evinced 
in the conduct of public affairs. In superintending his 
household he is assisted by his two daughters, handsome, 
modest, and amiable women, who had been educated in 
France.”’ Of the younger he prophesied that “‘as she is 
seventeen years old, and remarkably handsome, she will 
doubtless soon find that there are duties which it is still 
sweeter to perform than those of a daughter.’ We could 
wish that this lively and observant Frenchman had kept 
some record of their talks on men and books. He has 
little more to tell us of his host’s encyclopedic knowledge 
and polished learning than that in Europe he would hold 
a distinguished rank among men of letters. 

At this time Jefferson felt that Washington’s influence 
was overwhelming, and that the people were support- 
ing the President’s judgment against their own. Re- 
publicanism, therefore, must lie on its oars, and re- 
publicans must resign the vessel of state to its pilot so long 
as he remained on board. Shortly before this, on April 24, 
Jefferson had written to an Italian friend, Philip Mazzei, 
in the course of a letter on private matters, a brief but 
pungent account of the political situation in the United 
States. It attained, as we shall see, shortly afterwards 
great notoriety, and is still quoted along with some 
passages in the za by Jefferson’s detractors to show how 
grossly Jefferson exaggerated the designs of leading 
Federalists. The passage which was to give so much 
offence ran (in part) as follows: 


“The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left 
us. In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government 


[ 332 ] 


In Retirement 


which carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican, monarchi- 
cal, aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw 
over us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the Brit- 
ish Government. The main body of our citizens however remain true 
to their republican principles; the whole landed interest is republican 
and so is a great mass of talents. Against us are the Executive, the 
Judiciary, two out of three branches of the legislature, all the officers 
of the government, all who want to be officers, all timid men who prefer 
the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty, British merchants 
and Americans trading on British capital, speculators and holders in 
the banks and public funds. . . . In short we are likely to preserve 
the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labours and perils, 
but we shall preserve it. . . . We have only to awake and snap the 
Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the 
first sleep which succeeded our labours.” 


In July, 1796, a scientific acquaintance asked Jefferson to 
present to the Philosophical Society the results of his re- 
searches since his retirement from office. “‘But my good 
Sir,” replied Jefferson, ‘“‘I have made researches into noth- 
ing but what is connected with agriculture. In this way 
I have a little matter to communicate and will do it ere 
long. It is the form of a mould-board of least resistance. 
I had some years ago conceived the principles of it, and I 
explained them to Mr. Rittenhouse. I have since reduced 
the thing to practice, and have reason to believe the 
theory fully confirmed.” This was Jefferson’s improved 
plough, the most useful perhaps of his many ingenious 
inventions. In the same letter he mentioned with indig- 
nation some “‘blasphemies lately vended! against the 
memory of the father of American philosophy.” But 
Franklin’s fame, he says, will be preserved and venerated 
“as long as the thunder of heaven shall be heard or feared” 
— evidently an allusion to Turgot’s fine Latin epigram on 
Franklin : — | 


1 Probably by Cobbett in Porcupine’s Gazette. 


[ 333 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis 
A letter of July 10 to Monroe, who was about to leave 
Paris in high dudgeon, gives us another glimpse of the 
political situation. 


“The campaign of congress has closed. Though the Anglomen have 
in the end got their treaty through, and so far have triumphed over 
the cause of republicanism, yet it has been to them a dear bought vic- 
tory. It has given the most radical shock to their party which it has 
ever received. . . . They see that nothing can support them but the 
colossus of the President’s merits with the people, and the moment he 
retires that his successor if a monocrat will be over-borne by the re- 
publican sense of his constituents; if a republican he will of course 
give fair play to that sense, and lead things into the channel of 
harmony between the governors and governed. In the meantime 
patience.” 


As to the tactics of the Federalists, he notes that most as- 
siduous court has been paid to Patrick Henry. “He has 
been offered everything which they knew he would not 
accept. ... If they thought they could count upon him, 
they would run him for their Vice president, their first ob- 
ject being to produce a schism in this state. As it is, they 
will run Mr. Pinckney, in which they regard his southern 
position rather than his principles. Mr. Jay and his advo- 
cate Camillus ? are completely treaty-foundered.”’ 

After this there is a gap in the correspondence, only 
broken in November by a letter to Colonel John Stuart, 
who had discovered the bones of an antediluvian monster 
and had forwarded its great claw to Monticello. But 
the thigh bone, on which Jefferson had eagerly counted, 
was nowhere to be found. With the help of the thigh 
bone he would have possessed ‘“‘a whole limb from the 

1“ He has wrenched the thunder-bolt from heaven and the sceptre from 


tyrants.” 
2 Alexander Hamilton. 


[ 334 ] 


In Retirement 


haunch bone to the claw inclusive’ and would have been 
able to fix the stature of the animal without going into 
conjectural calculations. On the strength of the claw 
however Jefferson promises to make a communication to 
the Philosophical Society, with a proper notification of the 
services rendered to the world by the person who had 
rescued these extraordinary remains. He had great hopes 
that a live specimen of this animal, as well as of the mam- 
moth, might yet be discovered. “‘The annihilation of any 
species of existence,” he remarked, “is so unexampled in 
any parts of the economy of nature which we see, that 
we have a right to conclude as to the parts we do not 
see that the probabilities against such annihilation are 
stronger than those for it.”’ 

For an account of Jefferson’s return to active politics as 
republican standard bearer we may turn to the official life 
of Jefferson. The Republican party, says Randall, would 
not have Madison. They insisted on Jefferson. “When 
the subject began to be generally mooted, it became 
speedily apparent that the decided preferences of that 
party all pointed to Mr. Jefferson — indeed that no other 
man was or would be thought of as its candidate. By the 
middle of summer [1796] he was its universally understood 
nominee, in case General Washington should decline a re- 
election.”” In the celebrated Farewell Address, published 
in September, Washington announced his retirement. 
The Federalists had more difficulty in choosing their 
leader. Hamilton was quite out of the running; but he 
had enough influence to make it uncertain for a time 
whether John Adams would secure the nomination. There 
was a little more freedom, or a little less discipline, then 
than now among the electors to whom the voters en- 
trusted the choice of President and Vice President. At 


[ 335 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


that time also, it should be noted, the votes for President 
and Vice President were not cast separately. The candi- 
date who received the largest number of votes was elected 
President, and the candidate who came next Vice President. 
Eventually the Federalists chose Adams and Thomas 
Pinckney, while Jefferson and Aaron Burr (then known as 
an astute Republican organiser in New York) were the Re- 
publican nominees. It was a very close contest between 
Adams and Jefferson. In fact it may almost be said that 
Adams only won by a fluke, or as Hamilton put it, by a 
miracle; for he received one vote from Pennsylvania, 
one from Virginia, and one from North Carolina. Other- 
wise the result was perfectly geographical. Apart from 
these three votes Jefferson had all those of the south and 
of Pennsylvania, while Adams had the solid north and 
seven votes from Maryland. If Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
and North Carolina had not given these three eccentric 
votes to John Adams contrary to all expectation, Jefferson 
would have been elected President and Adams Vice 
President. As it was, the votes stood for Adams 71, for 
Jefferson 68, for Pinckney 59, for Burr 30. Samuel Adams 
received 15, Oliver Ellsworth 11, George Clinton 7, and 
Jay 5. Pinckney’s small vote is accounted for by a sus- © 
picion among the New England Federalists that Hamilton 
had arranged to put Pinckney above Adams; con- 
sequently some of the New England electors gave Ells- 
worth the second place on their tickets. Each elector 
wrote two names on his ballot paper, and although one 
was usually intended for President and the other for Vice 
President, yet it was the candidate whose name appeared 
most frequently who became President. 

On December 17, before the victory of Adams was cer- 
tain, Jefferson wrote to Madison: “the first wish of 


[ 336 | 


In Retirement 


my heart was that you should have been proposed for the 
administration of the government. On your declining it 
I wish anybody rather than myself.”” To Rutledge a few 
days later he explained that his name had been brought 
forward without concert on his part, and that he would 
rejoice at escaping: ‘“‘I have no ambition to govern 
men, no passion which would lead me to delight to ride in 
a storm.” When it seemed possible that there would be 
a tie between himself and Adams, he authorised Madison 
“to solicit on my behalf that Mr. Adams may be pre- 
ferred.” From the commencement of their public life 
Adams had always been his senior, and if the public vote 
were equal, that circumstance ought to give him the pref- 
erence. When the result was almost but not quite cer- 
tain, Jefferson wrote a very friendly letter of congratula- 
tions to Adams on the assumption that he would be elected, 
though “‘it is possible you may be cheated of your 
succession by a trick worthy the subtlety of your arch- 
friend of New York.” “I devoutly wish,” he added, 
“you may be able to shun for us this war, by which our 
agriculture, commerce, and credit will be destroyed. If 
you are, the glory will be all your own; and that your 
administration may be filled with glory and happiness to 
yourself and advantage to us is the sincere wish of one 
who, though in the course of our voyage through life va- 
rious little incidents have happened or been contrived to 
separate us, retains still for you the solid esteem of the 
moments when we were working for our independence, 
and sentiments of respect and affectionate attachment.” 
This letter he enclosed, unsealed, in another to Madison, 
who was to deliver it or not to the President elect at his 
discretion. In the letter to Madison, which was written 
on January 1 after hearing the final results, he says he 


eazy 


Thomas Jefferson 


cannot decide whether he would prefer the Vice Presi- 
dency to private life. As regards the enclosure he re- 
marks: “If Mr. Adams can be induced to administer 
the government on its true principles, and to relinquish 
his bias for an English constitution, it is to be considered 
whether it would not be on the whole for the public good 
to come to a good understanding with him as to his future 
elections. He is perhaps the only sure barrier against 
Hamilton’s getting in.’’ Madison replied from Philadel- 
phia (January 15) that on consideration he had suspended 
the delivery of this letter for six reasons, the last of which 
— “the probability that Mr. A.’s course of Administration 
may force an opposition to it from the republican quarter ”’ 
— was perhaps sufficient. In such matters as this Madi- 
son was a shrewd counsellor, and we cannot wonder that 
Jefferson put so much confidence in his discretion. More 
than a year after Jefferson’s death, when Trist was on a 
visit to Montpelier, Madison found this letter among his 
papers, and read it over. When he came to “the only sure 
barrier,” the old man shook his head and said, ‘“‘Hamilton 
never could have got in.” 


[ 338 ] 


CHAPTER II 
REPUBLICANISM AT BAY 


JEFFERSON’S VICE PRESIDENCY — 1797 TO z8or 


“President Adams seemed determined to establish a strong govern- 
ment tending to monarchical powers and by means of severe enact- 
ments to prostrate the free expression of popular opinion.” 

— From John Wood’s Suppressed History of the Administration of 
John Adams (1846) 


HIS chapter would be a very short one if Jefferson’s 

: political activities during the four years of his Vice 
Presidency had been confined to his official func- 

tions as Chairman of the Senate. At first it looked as if 
he might play a part as confidential advisor to President 
Adams on important matters, especially those affecting 
foreign policy. Indeed it is clear from notes left by both 
Adams and Jefferson on the subject that Adams began 
with this idea. But after meeting the Cabinet Ministers 
(all Hamiltonians whom he had taken over from Wash- 
ington) Adams was diverted from his intention of steering 
with Jefferson’s help a middle course, and allowed the 
ship to sail on under the Federalist flag. Consequently 
Jefferson dropped his own notion that the Republicans 
might make terms with Adams, and from this moment it 
was certain that he would have to be Republican candidate 
for the Presidency at the next contest. Meanwhile, 
throwing himself with characteristic energy into his offi- 
cial duties as Chairman of the Senate, he wrote to Wythe 


[ 339 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


and other friends to help him with their notes and obser- 
vations on parliamentary procedure, about which he felt 
‘rusty.’ If there is a subject with which a competent man 
is not thoroughly acquainted, there is no better way of 
mastering it than writing a book. Jefferson, accordingly, 
aided by the precedents of Hatsel and anticipating I\bert, 
prepared a Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which is 
still recognised as an admirable contribution to a dry but 
not unimportant branch of government. The basis on 
which he worked was a parliamentary pocketbook com- 
piled for his own edification when he was studying law 
at Williamsburg.! 

Freed by the President’s action from all part in the 
public policy of the Administration, Jefferson watched 
from his official chair in the Senate with critical, sus- 
picious, and often hostile eyes the measures which John 
Adams and his not very loyal colleagues adopted during 
four anxious and eventful years. 

Far from regretting, he rejoiced at, his narrow escape 
from power. “‘Flumina amo sylvasque inglorius,” he 
wrote to a friend. “The newspapers will permit me to 
plant my corn, peas, etc. in hills or drills as I please (and 
my oranges by-the-bye when you send them), while our 
eastern friend will be struggling with the storm which is 
gathering over us; perhaps be shipwrecked in it. This is 
certainly not a moment to covet the helm.” 

In another letter (to Dr. Benjamin Rush) he dwells com- 
placently on ‘the tranquil and unoffending station’ which 


* At the end of his Vice Presidency Jefferson deposited his manual in manu- 
script with the Senate. It was printed and became the recognised guide for 
public bodies in the United States. The Manual is conveniently divided into 
sections, each rule or observation being followed by a reference to Hatsel or 
some other authority. For the whole subject see Josef Redlich’s The Proce- 
dure of the House of Commons. 3 vols., London, 1908. 


[ 340 ] 


Republicanism at Bay 


will give him “philosophical evenings in the winter and 
rural days in the summer.” His interest in the bones of 
the antediluvian monster continued. In January he still 
thought it was a lion, three or four times larger than the 
ordinary. Later on he informs its discoverer that the 
Philosophical Society has named it the Megalonyx, and 
compares it with a skeleton found in Paraguay, which 
was classed not with lions but with sloths and anteaters. 
But on questioning Indians “‘we have received some of 
their traditions, which confirm his classification with the 
lion.” 

But though Jefferson found recreation in this and other 
hobbies, he was soon forced to add the duties of leader of 
the opposition to his official functions. To estimate his 
difficulties we-must understand the conditions. To ap- 
preciate the skill of the pilot, we must measure the 
strength of the currents and the fury of the storm which 
had to be encountered before the republican ship came safe 
to port. 

It needs a strong effort of the historical imagination to 
reproduce the atmosphere of American politics and the 
sharp but shifting issues which divided and subdivided 
American parties in the closing years of the eighteenth 
century. After the Federal Constitution was set going 
under Washington, differences had arisen about its inter- 
pretation. Some were for giving the central government 
the maximum of power consistent with the local adminis- 
tration of their affairs by the separate states ; some wished 
to restrict Federal activities to foreign policy, defence, 
and other powers enumerated in the Constitution. Grad- 
ually the former coalesced in a party called Federalist 
under the leadership of Hamilton, while the latter, gath- 
ering round Jefferson and Madison, became known as 


[ 341 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Republicans. It was the French Revolution however that 
turned these embryo groups into parties, and made non- 
party government impossible. Passion surged up until 
leaders who had been on good terms would hardly speak 
to one another. The friends of order became the friends of 
force. Liberty was derided as licence. Property began 
to fear the people. In some parts of the country disunion 
and even civil war were not far off. A traveller who visited 
America during the Adams administration said he could 
find few Americans; most of the people seemed to be 
either English or French. Jefferson said that political 
opponents in those days could not separate the business 
of the state from that of society. He complained that 
men who had been intimate all their lives would cross the 
street to avoid meeting, or turn their heads away lest they 
should be obliged to touch their hats. Until the execution 
of Louis brought on war between France and England, a 
great majority of the American people naturally cherished 
warm feelings of affection and gratitude for the French 
whose interposition had helped to win the War of Inde- 
pendence. Lafayette and many of the French officers 
had been immensely popular in society; from Washing- 
ton downwards no American would have dreamed of war 
with France. Towards Great Britain resentment lin- 
gered; but it was being softened by time and trade, es- 
pecially among the mercantile classes, whose prosperity 
depended so largely on British markets. But when, at- 
tacked by foreign enemies, the French republicans plunged 
into excesses, half America embraced the French cause 
as the cause of democracy and freedom, hoping and 
believing that the autocrats of Austria and Prussia, and 
the oligarchy of England would be repulsed and that re- 
publican institutions would spread over Europe. The 


[ 342 ] 


Republicanism at Bay 


other half, when they beheld Lafayette and many good 
liberals in exile, and read of the Reign of Terror and the 
Goddess of Reason, saw only irreligion, profligacy, an- 
archy, and a new despotism worse than the old. For them 
unreformed England became more and more the embodi- 
ment of law and order, a strong government not insen- 
_ sible to popular opinion, but secure against popular pas- 
sion, an aristocratic model towards which the American 
constitution might well look rather than in the direction 
of French Jacobinism. They began to prefer Edmund 
Burke to Tom Paine and to fear Equality more than they 
loved Liberty. 

It is but just to say that most of the responsible leaders 
on both sides were anxious to avoid war with either Eng- 
land or France. But the pressure on Adams from Hamil- 
ton’s men to make an alliance with England and to pro- 
voke or declare war on France was at times severe, and 
might have been irresistible but for the strenuous resist- 
ance offered by the Republicans in Congress. Jefferson 
indeed laboured hard and successfully, not only to keep 
his country out of the European war but to make the Re- 
publican party the peace party. It will be remembered 
that the first danger, after England came into the war, 
was that the United States might join France. When 
that danger was averted by the Jay treaty, the French 
Directory, elated by a series of victories over the Allies, 
felt strong enough to show its resentment against the 
American government and issued decrees against neutral 
commerce which enabled French privateers to prey upon 
American ships and cargoes. Things stood thus when 
Adams took office. His first step was to call Congress to- 
gether, a step which Jefferson regretted because, as he said, 
the Administration, if it wished for peace, could take the 


[ 343 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


necessary steps without calling Congress, whereas if it 
wished to prepare for war and to take warlike measures 
the convening of Congress was essential. Congress ac- 
cordingly was summoned for May 15. Two days earlier 
Jefferson despatched from Philadelphia a remarkable 
survey of the political situation to his friend Elbridge 
Gerry of Massachusetts. Gerry, a moderate Republican, 
was friendly to John Adams, and Jefferson was at pains 
to explain that he too had a high esteem for Adams, and 
had been well pleased when he gained the Presidency. 
In fact there was not a moment from his first acquiescence 
in his own candidature when he did not “devoutly pray 
that the very thing might happen which has happened. 
The second office of the government is honourable and 
easy, the first is but a splendid misery.”” Gerry had ex- 
pressed apprehension that stratagems would be employed 
to cause a misunderstanding between the President and 
the Vice President. Jefferson agreed, and added: “‘These 
machinations will proceed from the Hamiltonians by 
whom he is surrounded, and who are only a little less 
hostile to him than to me. It cannot but damp the pleas- 
ure of cordiality, when we suspect that it is suspected.” 
Jefferson doubted his power to remove these suspicions. 
The Hamiltonians feared his influence on the executive 
councils; ‘‘but when they shall know that I consider my 
office as constitutionally confined to legislative functions 

. their fears may perhaps subside.” He heartily 
echoed Gerry’s wish that the United States could take its 
stand on a ground perfectly neutral and independent 
towards all nations. That had been his constant object 
through public life. If it had not been for the failure of 
the Bank of England — he referred to the recent suspen- 
sion of specie payments — the Federal printing presses 


[ 344 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


would already have drawn them into a war on the side of 
England, and some of their newspapers were even ready 
to break up the Union. That would be the end of the 
tragedy. 

But “‘whatever follies we may be led into as to 
foreign nations” Jefferson hoped and believed that “‘we 
shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, 
and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country 
from becoming an arena of gladiators. Much as I abhor 
war, and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind, and 
anxiously as I wish to keep out of the broils of Europe, I 
would yet go with my brethren into these rather than 
separate from them.”’ To keep America apart from Eu- 
rope he almost joined in the wish of Silas Deane that there 
were an ocean of fire between the old world and the new. 
A month later he wrote “with infinite joy”’ to congratu- 
late Gerry on his appointment with Pinckney and John 
Marshall as Envoy Extraordinary to the French Repub- 
lic, and conjured him to accept the mission, in order that 
it might be sealed with the confidence of all parties and 
ensure a peaceful disposition in the negotiations. The 
European War, he thought, was likely to end in another 
year. That was one good reason for not being embroiled. 
Another was that “our countrymen have divided them- 
selves by such strong affections to the French and the Eng- 
lish that nothing will secure us internally but a divorce 
from both nations.” There was good reason for anxiety. 
President Adams’s speech to Congress had inflamed re- 
sentment against France; and though news of French 
victories and of the mutiny at the Nore had cooled the 
war party, a report was current that the French Directory 
contemplated war on the United States. The Coun- 
cil of Ancients however rejected the proposal, and when 


[ 345 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Congress adjourned in the summer, war seemed more re- 
mote. Jefferson thought that the peace with Austria and 
the insurrection in Ireland had helped to restrain Fed- 
eralist chauvinism. The two parties in debate had 
charged each other with inconsistency, he said, and with 
being governed by attachment to a foreign country rather 
than by “‘reason and pure Americanism’”’; but he claimed 
that the Republicans had remained consistent advocates 
of peace, while most of the Federalists had voted for war 
measures, war preparations, and an increase of the debt 
to provide for frigates, fortifications, and additions to the 
army. 

August found him back at Monticello. His letter to 
Mazzei had found its way from Paris into the Federalist 
newspapers and was causing a mighty stir. In the process 
of translation from English to Italian, from Italian into 
French, and from French back into English the diction 
had been varied and in one place the substance falsified. 
Should he issue a correct version? If he did, the correc- 
tion would involve a criticism of birthday celebrations, 
levees, processions “‘and other pomposities” which 
might have brought on a personal difference with Wash- 
ington. On the whole therefore he thought it best to re- 
main silent; but he was anxious to consult with his 
friends, and sent Madison an earnest exhortation to come 
with Monroe to Monticello for the purpose. 

The new year began better politically than commer- 
cially. On January 3, 1798, Jefferson wrote from Phila- 
delphia to Madison: ‘The bankruptcies here continue. 
The prison is full of the most reputable merchants. .. . 
Prices have fallen greatly. . . . Money is scarce beyond 
all example.” The Republican Party however was gain- 
ing ground in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Eng- 


[ 346 ] 


Republicanism at Bay 


land. At this time the general spirit of the merchants was 
becoming more peaceful, and Jefferson began to hope that 
they would “rub through” without war. One of his let- 
ters discusses the projected French invasion of England. 
Her subjugation, he says, would be a general calamity ; 
but happily that was impossible. Her republicanisation 
would be a blessing, though he did not wish to see a form 
of government forced upon any nation. 

In March bad news came from France. A French de- 
cree had been issued against neutral shipping. American 
shipowners and merchants were indignant. New pro- 
posals for armaments were brought forward: The Presi- 
dent again adopted a warlike tone, on learning that the 
American envoys in Paris had failed to establish peace- 
ful relations with France. They had even been ap- 
proached by persons representing themselves as agents 
of Talleyrand with the barefaced suggestion that a large 
bribe should be distributed among members of the Direc- 
tory to facilitate negotiations. On their refusal Pinckney 
and Marshall were dismissed, but Gerry was persuaded 
to remain. Early in April the Senate voted to publish 
the despatches; and this was done, the names of “Talley- 
rand’s brokers,’ as the obscure agents were called, being 
disguised by the letters X. Y. Z. A universal outcry of 
patriotic indignation followed from all parts of the Union. 
“Millions for defence but not a cent for tribute’’ was the 
slogan; and the President interpreting the national spirit 
in a message of June 21st declared that he would “‘never 
send another Minister to France without assurances that 
he would be received, respected, and honoured as the rep- 
resentative of a great, free, powerful and independent na- 
tion.” For a moment party lines seemed to be almost 

obliterated. Many republicans joined in the demand for 


[ 347 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


strong measures to vindicate the national honour. The 
administration of John Adams was lifted to a dizzy 
height of popularity, only to lose favour by an equally 
amazing abuse of the power with which it was invested 
by the momentary passions of an inflamed public opinion. 
Instead of declaring war the Administration determined 
to seize the opportunity of stamping on Republicanism 
at home. Their first proposal was to extinguish by de- 
portation French propagandists like Volney, English 
“infidels” like Priestley, and some Irish agitators who 
were endeavouring to obtain American sympathy for the 
rebellion of ’98. Accordingly the Alien Act was passed in 
June, and in the following month to curb the licentious- 
ness of the press, that is to say of the Opposition press, 
Congress was induced to pass the Sedition Act. 

The Alien Law authorised the President to order any 
alien whom he judged dangerous to peace and liberty to 
depart from the United States, and imposed fines and im- 
prisonment on those who refused to obey the order. Vol- 
ney and a number of other foreigners, who were obnoxious 
to the government, made haste to leave before the passing 
of the Act; but after it came into operation it was prac- 
tically a dead letter. The Sedition Law was much more 
formidable to the opponents of the government. It in- 
flicted heavy fines and imprisonments on any who should 
combine or conspire to oppose government measures, or 
should utter any false, scandalous, or malicious writing 
against the government, the Congress, or the President 
of the United States. It was to remain in force till March 
3, 1801. Two days after passing this statute — on July 
16, 1798 — Congress adjourned. 

As the first Amendment to the Constitution (inspired 
by Jefferson) had prohibited Congress from passing any 


[ 348 ] 


Republicanism at Bay 


law to abridge freedom of speech or writing, the Sedition 
Act was on the face of it unconstitutional; but such was 
the state of public feeling that the more violent a measure 
the greater was its popularity ; and prudent men felt they 
must bend if they were not to be broken by the storm. In 
war time we are familiar with the psychology that induces 
a government to direct half its energies to the persecution 
of a recalcitrant minority. The censorship of the press, 
the brow-beating of opinion, the persecution of Quakers 
and other conscientious objectors, and above all the sup- 
pression of inconvenient criticisms however true — and 
the greater the truth the greater the inconvenience — are 
all part and parcel in democratic countries of what is 
called the National Effort in War Time. To disseminate 
useful falsehoods for the winning of a war and to suppress 
inopportune truth certainly requires extraordinary meas- 
ures; but in this case the Federalists had no such Jjustifi- 
cation. They were not at war. There was no danger of 
invasion. It was to prepare for winning elections rather 
than war, that they resolved to muzzle their opponents 
and deprive them of their constitutional rights. Cer- 
tainly they acted as if this were their object. Republican 
editors and writers were fined and imprisoned, and men 
were haled before the courts to be prosecuted for chance 
remarks and derogatory comments on the President and 
the government with a zeal which would have done credit 
to Spanish Inquisitors. This chapter of history was 
dubbed by John Randolph of Roanoke ‘The American 
Reign of Terror.’ 

Jefferson’s practised eye saw the danger at the end of 
March. The question of war and peace, he wrote, “‘de- 
pends now on a toss of cross and pile. If we could but 
gain this season we should be saved.’”’ An attempt had 


[ 349 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


been made to get the Quakers to come forward with a 
petition “to aid with the weight of their body the feeble 
band of peace,” but only a few would sign. Their attach- 
ment to England was stronger than their peace prin- 
ciples. Luckily the House of Representatives was pretty 
equally divided between war and peace, and even when 
the X. Y. Z. letters became known the government, as 
we have seen, preferred war preparations and the perse- 
cution of opinion to a declaration of hostilities. 

Jefferson wrote to tell Madison that the war party in- 
tended to pass not only an Alien Bill and a Sedition Bill 
but a Bill for modifying the law of Citizenship which 
would be aimed at Gallatin. The object of the Sedition 
Bill would be the suppression of the Whig presses, and 
especially those of Bache and Carey. “If these papers 
fall, republicanism will be entirely brow-beaten.”’ War 
addresses were ‘showering’ in from New Jersey and the 
great trading towns. .. . ‘*The War Hawks talk of sep- 
tembrising, deportation, and the examples for quelling 
sedition set by the French executive. All the firmness of 
the human mind is now in a state of requisition.”” Those 
were indeed dark days; but thanks to Jefferson’s prudence, 
patience, foresight, cool courage, and matchless fortitude 
the Republican party survived the ordeal. At the height 
of the excitement in May he is willing to excuse the mul- 
titude for acting on the impulse of the moment, but not 
the language used by the President, who in reply to patri- 
otic addresses, was hurling threats not only against France 
but against his own fellow citizens. The Republican 
leader preached patience to his followers. There was no 
reason for despair. The war ardour would be cooled by 
the war taxes. Already the House of Representatives was 
whittling away some of the worst provisions of an army 


[ 350 ] 


Republicanism at Bay 


bill. Meanwhile to be peaceful was to be persecuted. 
Jefferson was receiving daily proofs of party spite and 
rancour from people who never saw him nor knew any- 
thing of him but through Porcupine? and Fenno. When 
passions are boiling over, anyone, he said, who keeps 
cool and clear of the contagion “‘is so far below the point 
of ordinary conversation, that he finds himself insulated 
in every society. However the fever will not last.”’ Taxa- 
tion would bring on reflection, and reflection with infor- 
mation would enable their countrymen to recover; for 
they were essentially republican. He implores Madison 
to return to the public theatre and to take an independent 
stand in the House of Representatives. Meanwhile some- 
thing very like an informal state of war had supervened. 
At the end of May a bill was passed to authorise the cap- 
ture of French armed vessels found hovering on the 
American coast. The President publicly declared that he 
would not unbrace a single nerve for any treaty France 
could offer. 

At this time John Taylor, a well-known Republican 
writer, thought the time had come “‘to estimate the sep- 
arate mass of Virginia and North Carolina with a view to 
their separate existence.” To this proposition Jefferson 
administered soothing discouragement. It was true, he 
said, that for the moment Massachusetts and Connecti- 
cut were in the saddle “and that they ride us very hard, 
cruelly insulting our feelings.” It was true too that those 
who had got the ascendancy possessed immense means 
for retaining their advantage. But the present situation 
was not a natural one. Though the government was in 


1Porcupine’s Gazette was run by William Cobbett with the assistance of 
Hamilton and other Federalists who were working for an alliance with the 
British monarchy. 


[351 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


anti-republican hands, time would bring round a different 
order of things. Besides, “‘in every free and deliberating 
society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite 
parties, and violent dissensions and discords. . . . Per- 
haps this party division is necessary to induce each to 
watch and delate to the people the proceedings of the 
other. But if on a temporary superiority of the one 
party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, 
no federal government can ever exist.” If the Union were 
broken, there would still be passions and discords and 
parties in its fragments. Therefore let them not break 
away from their New England associates, whose ‘‘per- 
versity of character’? was well fitted to constitute a 
natural division of parties. 

“A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, 
their spells dissolved, and the people recovering their true sight, re- 
storing their government to its true principles. . . . Whocan say what 
would be the evils of a scission, and when and where they would end? 
Better keep together as we are, haul off from Europe as soon as we can, 
and from all attachments to any portions of it. . . . If the game runs 
sometimes against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, 
and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the prin- 
ciples we have lost. For this is a game where principles are at stake.” 

In June Jefferson got into very hot water; for his friend 
Dr. Logan had sailed for Hamburg on a private peace 
mission, of which unwisely he made a mystery. The 
War Hawks seized upon Logan’s disappearance without 
notice, and declared that there was a traitorous corre- 
spondence between American Jacobins and the French 
Directory.!. Their libelists set to work. ‘‘Porcupine gave 
me a principal share in it, as I am told, for I never read 
his papers.” At this time, June 21, Congress was prepar- 


1On his return Logan saw the President and helped Gerry to persuade him 
that the French government really wanted peace with America. 


[ 352 ] 


Republicanism at Bay 


ing to adjourn. This would be “withdrawing the fire 
from under a boiling pot.” 

At this critical moment Jefferson, before leaving Phila- 
delphia for Monticello, found time as President of the 
Philosophical Society to write a letter to a Kentucky 
naturalist on the subject of herds of wild horses which 
were said to exist west of the Mississippi. The Society 
hoped to add a chapter to the history of the horse, of 
which very little was known, and he begged therefore for 
particulars of “the manners, habits and laws of his exist- 
ence which are peculiar to his wild state.’’ After his re- 
turn to Monticello the Federalist newspapers continued 
to pelt Jefferson with defamatory missiles. One of his 
friends sent him in August a newspaper cutting describ- 
ing how Republican journalists had been ‘closeted’ with 
Jefferson at various times during the Session. Jefferson 
replied with some humour that every one who came to 
see him in his public room might be said to have been 
closeted with him. In this sense it was true he had re- 
ceived visits from writers “friendly to liberty and our 
present form of government,” like Bache, Franklin’s 
grandson, and others whose visits the government spies 
might remember better than he did. But he did not pro- 
pose to take action in reply to misstatements in the press. 
“At a very early period of my life I determined never to 
put a sentence into any newspaper. I have religiously 
adhered to the resolution through my life, and have great 
reason to be contented with it. Were I to undertake to 
answer the calumnies of the newspapers, it would be more 
than all my own time, and that of twenty aids could effect. 
For while I should be answering one, twenty new ones 
would be invented.”’ 

In the following month he wrote to an Irish rebel, A. H. 


[353 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Rowan, who had found refuge in the United States and 
was now endangered by the Alien Act, that he would find 
a safe asylum in Virginia, where “‘the laws of the land, 
administered by upright judges, would protect you from 
any exercise of power unauthorised by the Constitution 
of the United States. The Habeas Corpus secures every 
man here, alien or citizen, against everything which is 
not law, whatever shape it may assume.”’ Here we have 
a clear intimation of Jefferson’s doctrine, accepted by the 
whole republican party, that the Alien and Sedition Laws 
were not laws but a nullity, made void and of no effect 
by the Constitution. He was now taking measures at 
Monticello with his friends for a decisive demonstration 
of this view. The two brothers, George Nicholas of Ken- 
tucky, and Wilson C. Nicholas of Virginia, came to Monti- 
cello in October to deliberate on the situation and to de- 
vise a plan for safeguarding the liberties guaranteed by 
the Constitution. From these conferences emerged the 
famous Kentucky Resolutions drafted by Jefferson, and 
the Virginia Resolutions drafted by Madison. The secret 
of the authorship of the Kentucky Resolutions was re- 
ligiously kept by the two brothers; but Jefferson in 1821 
described the facts to George Nicholas’s son, and two 
drafts of the Resolutions in his own hand were found 
among Jefferson’s papers. Jefferson says he undertook 
to sketch out an energetic protest against the constitu- 
tionality of the Alien and Sedition Laws for introduction 
into the Kentucky Legislature on “‘a solemn assurance, 
which I strictly required, that it should not be known 
from what quarter they came.”’ Some years afterwards 
Colonel Nicholas asked if the authorship might be made 
known, but Jefferson “‘pointedly enjoined that it should 
not.” At first it was intended that the Resolutions should 


[354] 


Republicanism at Bay 


originate in North Carolina; but afterwards Kentucky 
was preferred, and they were introduced by George 
Nicholas. In preparing the Kentucky and Virginia Res- 
olutions Jefferson and Madison were in close communica- 
tion. The temper and feelings which impelled Jefferson 
to take this decisive action find expression in a letter to 
S. T. Mason dated Monticello, October 11, 1798: — 

“The X. Y. Z. fever has considerably abated through the country, 
as I am informed, and the Alien and Sedition laws are working hard. 
I fancy that some of the State legislatures will take strong ground on 
this occasion. For my own part I consider those laws as merely an ex- 
periment on the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed 
violation of the Constitution. If this goes down, we shall immediately 
see attempted another act of Congress, declaring that the President 
shall continue in office during life, reserving to another occasion the 
transfer of the succession of his heirs, and the establishment of the 
Senate for life.” 


If this was the aim of the Oliverians, he added, Monk 
and the Cavaliers might be playing for the restoration of 
his most gracious Majesty George the Third. 

A month later, November 17, he sent Madison a 
draft of the Kentucky Resolutions. These Resolutions, 
nine in number, were declaratory of the Constitution. 
The Union of the Federal States, they set forth, was by a 
compact, constituting a general government for special 
purposes with definite delegated powers reserving to each 
state the residuary mass of right to its own self-govern- 
ment. Hence whenever the general government assumed 
undelegated powers its acts were ““unauthoritative, void, 
and of no force.” 

Further, “‘as in all other cases of compact among par- 
ties having no common judge, each party has an equal 
right to judge for itself as well of infractions as of the mode 
and measure of redress.”’ After reciting the Constitutional 


[355] 


Thomas Jefferson 


amendment which expressly forbade Congress to make any 
law “‘abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,”’ the 
third Resolution concluded that the Sedition Act “which 
does abridge the freedom of the press, is not law, but is al- 
together void and of no effect.”” The Fourth Resolution 
declared that Alien friends were under the jurisdiction 
and protection of the laws of the state wherein they re- 
sided; and as no power over them had been delegated to 
the United States,the Alien Act was also void. Finally the 
Governor of Kentucky was instructed to communicate the 
Resolutions to other State legislatures and to assure them 
that Kentucky was faithful to the Federal compact accord- 
ing to its plain intent and meaning; but it would not 
tamely submit to the undelegated and unlimited powers 
which would result from allowing the Alien and Sedition 
Actstostand. Other states therefore were asked to concur 
in declaring the two acts void, and to unite with Kentucky 
in requesting their repeal at the next Session of Congress. 
The Resolutions were passed by the Kentucky legisla- 
ture and signed by the Governor on November 16. The 
Virginia Resolutions, which followed in December, were 
to the same effect. They treated the Alien and Sedition 
Laws as a usurpation by the Central Government of 
powers which it did not possess; but they did not insist, 
as the Kentucky Resolutions had done, that each party 
must be judge of infractions and of redress. Jefferson’s 
idea was, as he put it to Madison (November 17), that 
matters should be left in such a train that they should 
not be committed absolutely to push things to extremities 
and yet be free to push them as far as events rendered 
prudent. 

He did not consider it safe to communicate much by 
letter, owing to ‘the infidelities of the post office’; but we 


[ 356 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


have a pretty full and confidential statement of his views 
to John Taylor, who was to present the Virginia Reso- 
lutions (November 26), and was inclined to go too far. 
Jefferson reminds him that many respectable citizens of 
Virginia were still in the X. Y. Z. stage. But it was only 
a disease of the imagination and would pass away, as 
the patients were essentially Republicans. “Indeed, the 
Doctor is now on his way to cure it, in the guise of a tax- 
gatherer. But give time for the medicine to work, and 
for the repetition of stronger doses which must be admin- 
istered.”” The government had failed to provide for the 
expenses of the year. To borrow was difficult; to print 
paper money was perilous. Nothing then but more taxes 
could get them along, and these would carry reason and 
reflection to every man’s door, particularly in the hour of 
election. A characteristic passage follows : — 

“T wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Con- 
stitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction 
of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of 
its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal 
government the power of borrowing... . I know that to pay all proper 
expenses within the year, would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not 
so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars would be reduced in pro- 
portion. . . . For the present, I should be for resolving the alien and 
sedition laws to be against the Constitution and merely void, and for 
addressing the other States to obtain similar declarations; and I would 
not do anything at this moment which should commit us further, but 
reserve ourselves to shape our future measures, or no measures, by the 
events which may happen. It is a singular phenomenon, that while our 
State governments are the very dest in the world, without exception or 
comparison, our General Government has, in the rapid course of nine 
or ten years, become more arbitrary, and has swallowed more of the 
public liberty than even that of England. I enclose you a column, cut 
out of a London paper, to show you that the English, though charmed 
with our making their enemies our enemies, yet blush and weep over 
our sedition law.” 


[ 357] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Jefferson’s correspondence shows that the labours of 
the Autumn were continued with tremendous energy in 
the new year. He arrived in Philadelphia on Christmas 
Day, and on January 3, 1799, wrote to tell Madison that 
Gerry’s correspondence with Talleyrand when published 
would show France in a very conciliatory attitude. It 
was fortunate that Gerry had stayed behind; but though 
it was five months since his return, his transactions with 
the French Government after the departure of his col- 
leagues were still being kept back in order, it seemed, to 
maintain the war excitement until a five million loan of- 
fering eight per cent interest had been subscribed. By 
this date (the middle of January) Jefferson, confident 
of a favourable change in public sentiment, was anxious 
that Madison should give it a decisive turn and justify 
their views of the constitution by publishing his Notes 
of the Debates during the Convention. Such a publica- 
tion, he thought, would exercise a decisive influence, “‘and 
something is required from you as a set off against the 
sin of your retirement.” Madison, it shou'd be ex- 
plained, had given up Congress to look after his private 
affairs; but he could not be prevailed upon to publish 
these notes, which indeed would have told very heavily 
against Hamilton. 

A few days later Gerry’s correspondence and Picker- 
ing’s report appeared, showing, as Jefferson put it to 
Monroe, the willingness of the French government to 
negotiate, and the refusal of the American government 
to believe what they said. However, the X. Y. Z. delusion 
was wearing off, and the publication of Gerry’s despatches 
would tend to open the eyes of the people. Other cir- 
cumstances would strengthen these impressions — the 
Alien and Sedition Laws, the increase of armaments, the 


[ 358 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


usurious loan, the prospect of additional taxes and of 
still heavier ones if war were forced on, and of “‘recruiting 
officers lounging at every court house and decoying the 
labourer from his plough.” Fortunately the French “‘an- 
nihilated as they are on the ocean, cannot get at us for 
some time,’ even if the American government deter- 
mined to open commerce with Toussaint and his black 
subjects in Hayti now in rebellion against France. 

Poor Gerry was in a very disconsolate mood. The Fed- 
eralists were angry with him for staying in France, and 
he had not gone far enough to win the praises of the Re- 
publicans. In vexation of spirit he wrote to Jefferson, 
who thereupon urged him to give full information to his 
fellow citizens, postponing motives of delicacy to those 
of duty. “Make your stand, he said, on the high ground 
of your own character.” Better to disregard calumny 
and ‘be borne above it on the shoulders of your grateful 
fellow citizens’ than to sink into ‘the humble oblivion to 
which the Federalists (self-called) have secretly con- 
demned you.’ To reassure his friend’s doubts about the 
republican faith Jefferson set forth his zeal for the Consti- 
tution in the true sense in which it was adopted by the 
States, and sketched out the main lines of his policy : — 

“J am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all 
the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the na- 
tional debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely 
to make partisans. ... I am for free commerce with all nations; 
political connection with none; and little or no diplomatic establish- 
ment. And I am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the 
quarrels of Europe; entering that field of slaughter to preserve their 
balance, or joining in the confederacy of kings to war against the prin- 
ciples of liberty.” | 
He stood for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and 
_ for encouraging the progress of science in all its branches, 


[359] 


Thomas Jefferson 


not for raising a hue and cry against the sacred name of 
philosophy, or for awing the human mind by stories of 
‘“raw-head and bloody bones.” To these principles he 
added opposition to a standing army and to increases of 
the navy which would grind the country down with pub- 
lic burdens. As for the change of French sympathies, he 
had wished for the success of the French Revolution, and 
still wished it might end in the establishment of a free and 
well-ordered republic. Though he felt their atrocious dep- 
redations on American commerce, he did not think war 
the surest means of redressing them, and appealed to 
Gerry to say whether a peaceable and honourable settle- 
ment might not have been obtained. 

Jefferson was now putting forth prodigious efforts. His 
spirited words penetrated all parts of the Union. He was 
assessing his friends at fifty or a hundred dollars apiece 
to aid the campaign. Edmund Pendleton had written in 
the Republican interest a patriarchal address to his coun- 
trymen — short, simple, and intelligible — which had pro- 
duced a marked effect; and Jefferson urged him to reca- 
pitulate the story of the French negotiations and to show 
the public how it had been duped by the X. Y. Z. corre- 
spondence. ‘No one in America,” he wrote (January 29, 
1799) “can do it so well as yourself.’ It might be “printed 
in hand bills, of which we could print and disperse ten or 
twelve thousand copies under letter covers through all the 
United States by the members of Congress when they 
return home.”’ To save Pendleton the trouble of hunting 
up the several documents which he was to recapitulate, 
Jefferson had collected them and enclosed them in his 
letter. 

It has been affirmed over and over again with an itera- 
tion which might impose upon indolent readers that 


[ 360 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


Jefferson’s fears for constitutional liberty were the crea- 
tures of his own imagination; nay, that the designs with 
which he credited Hamilton and the leading Federalists 
were cunningly invented by him for political purposes. 

But a survey of the facts gathered from contemporary 
papers and correspondence shows that, though Jefferson’s 
suspicions and anxieties were not always directed to the 
right quarters, his apprehensions were well founded. 
Though war was never formally declared, a sort of war 
between France and the United States subsisted for many 
months. But for Jefferson’s exertions it is almost certain 
that the Hamiltonians would have had their way. War 
would have been declared on France. An alliance would 
have been made with England. Hamilton would have 
commanded the American army and would in all proba- 
bility have attempted his Napoleonic project — very like 
the later one of his rival Burr — of conquering Spanish 
South America. A letter to the Venezuelan filibuster, 
Miranda, in August, 1798, proves that Hamilton’s military 
ambitions were built on the war fever and required war 
with France for their fulfillment. ‘““The plan in my opin- 
ion,” he wrote, ‘‘ought to be a fleet of Great Britain and 
an army of the United States, and a government for the 
liberated territory agreeable to both the cooperators, about 
which there will be no difficulty. To arrange the plan a com- 
petent authority from Great Britain to some person here 
is the best expedient. Your presence here in that case 
will be extremely essential. We are raising an army of 
about 12,000 men. General Washington has resumed his 
station at the head of the armies. I am second in com- 
mand.” | 

Jefferson therefore was right in thinking that Hamilton 
_ wanted war with France. Was he wrong in thinking that 


[ 361 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


the party which, without war, had passed the Alien and 
Sedition Laws in defiance of the constitution would stick 
at nothing? It is at least far from unlikely that the 
United States might for a time have fallen into the hands 
of a military adventurer who hated popular government 
and would have been embarrassed by no scruples (as he 
showed a little later) in defeating the popular will. 

Jefferson knew nothing of the Hamilton-Miranda plot; 
but he quickly discerned that Talleyrand, though he might 
have wanted a bribe, did not want war. He saw too, and 
made it known, that the refusal of the French Government 
to receive a particular envoy or minister was no cause for 
war. By degrees the President began to realise that war 
with France was avoidable, and that it was his duty to 
avoid it. He was impressed by a private letter from 
Paris and by an interview with Dr. Logan, who had seen 
Talleyrand; and to the utter dismay and confusion of 
Pickering, his Secretary of State, and the rest of the Ham- 
iltonians he determined to reopen negotiations. 

This decision, “‘the event of events,” as Jefferson rightly 
called it, was announced in the Senate on February 18, 
1799. Jefferson witnessed the scene and next day wrote to 
Madison of the consternation it had aroused among the 
Federalists. A few days later Pickering wrote to Hamil- 
ton: “We have all been shocked and grieved at the nom- 
ination of a Minister to negotiate with France . . . but 
the President is fixed. . . . I beg you to be assured, it is 
wholly his own act.” Jefferson was overjoyed. He saw 
that every further effort towards war had been rendered 
desperate, though he did not at first believe that Adams 
had been converted. The Senate however approved of 
the President’s nominations for a new mission to France; 
military preparations were dropped, and after a noisy 


[ 362 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


tussle over the Alien and Sedition Laws in the House of 
Representatives, where the parties were very evenly bal- 
anced, Congress adjourned at the beginning of March. 

Returning to Monticello Jefferson found the Virginian 
election campaign in full swing. The Federalists put 
forth tremendous efforts; for they had been exasperated 
by the Virginia Resolutions, which Madison had carried 
through the legislature in December, and were determined 
if possible to reverse them. They had Washington and 
Patrick Henry on their side, the hero and the orator of 
American Independence. But even so they were only 
able to gain a few seats. The Republicans came out of the 
contests with a majority of nearly two to one. 

Meanwhile the President’s plans for renewing negotia- 
tions with France did not mature rapidly. Jefferson fan- 
cied that Adams wanted to “‘parry”’ Talleyrand’s over- 
ture; and indeed the temper of Adams was so uncertain, 
and his conduct so eccentric, that even so shrewd an ob- 
server as Jefferson might well have been deceived. But 
the important thing was that a declaration of war on 
France had been indefinitely postponed, that war prepara- 
tions had been relaxed, and that the war fever was dying 
down all through the spring, summer, and autumn of 
1799. 

At the end of July, Adams, who was at Quincy, received 
from his Secretary of State satisfactory assurances from 
the French Government; but soon afterwards Pickering, 
with the support of three other Cabinet ministers, pro- 
posed to suspend the mission because of changes in the 
Directory. This opposition to his measures roused the 
President, and he set out for Philadelphia. At Trenton 
he met his Cabinet, reinforced by Hamilton. A most 
determined effort was made by them to prevent the em- 


[ 363 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


barkation of the envoys, and Hamilton had an inter- 
view with the President, at which, as Adams has re- 
corded, ‘“‘the little man”’ wrought himself up to a great 
degree of “heat and effervescence” but without in the 
least deflecting the President from his resolution. So at 
last in October the new peace mission was despatched to 
Paris. The war party was confounded. A settlement 
with France was almost certain. The Miranda project 
could no longer be cherished, even in imagination, and 
all Hamilton’s schemes for coercing liberty in America, 
amending the constitution in the Federal interest, ex- 
tending the Federal Judiciary to insure both the energetic 
execution of the laws in recalcitrant states like Virginia, 
and “‘ for the purposes of salutary patronage,’’! fell to the 
ground. The army, which in December, 1798, he had 
hoped would be raised to 50,000 men for the attack on 
Spanish South America, was. only five thousand in Feb- 
ruary, 1799. Nine thousand, it is true, were being added; 
but with the approach of a settlement with France prep- 
arations were rapidly relaxed. 

In the autumn Jefferson and Madison, with the support 
of Wilson Nicholas and other friends, determined that 
something further must be done in the matter of the Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky Resolutions; for not only had sev- 
eral states entered into the debate with counter resolu- 
tions repudiating their doctrines and arguments, but a 
Federalist Committee had prepared a report in support 
of the Alien and Sedition Laws, which had been approved 
by a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. 
It was therefore very desirable that Virginia and Ken- 
tucky should reaffirm the opinions of the previous year, 


1See Hamilton’s letter to Dayton (1799) quoted in Randall’s Fefferson, vol. 
II, p. 458, and in Hamilton’s Works. 


[ 364 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


including their attachment to the Union, to which as Jef- 
ferson put it (September 5) “‘we are willing to sacrifice 
everything but the rights of self government in those im- 
portant points in which we have never yielded,” confident 
that the American people whose rights they were vindi- 
cating “will, before it shall be too late, rally with us round 
the true principles of our Federal compact.”’ On the deli- 
cate question of reserving the rights of the states, in case 
of further violations by the Federal government of the 
compact, Madison in a discussion at Monticello recom- 
mended caution; and Jefferson readily concurred. Jef- 
ferson sent Nicholas a very brief outline of his ideas, but 
declined to prepare a further draft for the Kentuckians, 
saying that their talents were sufficient for every purpose, 
his sole concern being to make sure of concerted action 
so that the two states might pursue the same track. All 
went smoothly. The new general assembly of Virginia, 
convened in December, 1799, mustered many of the ablest 
men in the state, and the debates which ensued, like those 
of the preceding December, still repay study.1_ Madison, 
who had been chosen for Orange county, prepared for a 
Committee what was afterwards known in Virginia as 
Madison’s Report, and is officially described as the Vir- 
ginia Report of 1799. It still stands as the classical state- 
ment of the Republican case against the constitutionality 
of the Alien and Sedition Laws; and if there were nothing 
else from Madison’s pen, it would justify Jefferson’s opin- 
ion of his friend’s superlative abilities as a constitutional 
lawyer and publicist. Madison took the Virginia Resolu- 
tions of 1798 seriatim and defended them point by point 


1 The Virginia Resolutions, the debates of 1798, the Madison report, and 
other documents are contained in a volume published by J. W. Randolph at 
Richmond in 1850. 

[ 365 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


against the criticisms which had been levelled against 
them; and those who desire to be masters of the contro- 
versy will compare it with the Report of Congress.! Jeffer- 
son had been much perturbed by a new Federalist argu-. 
ment for the Sedition Act as merely declaratory of the 
Common Law, which, it was said, was part of the law not 
only of the individual states but of the Federal Union and 
government. This theory he rejected with indignation, 
and much argument on the subject will be found in his 
letters. Madison’s Report subjected it to close analysis, 
and sought to prove that if it were admitted it would 
be fatal to the authority of the individual states: “It 
would overwhelm the residuary sovereignty of the states, 
and by one constructive operation new-model the whole 
political fabric of the country.’’ Madison’s Report was 
adopted by the Committee and by the General Assembly 
of Virginia, which resolved that five thousand copies 
should be printed and distributed “among the good 
people of this commonwealth.” 

In December, 1799, two great Virginians had passed 
away — Patrick Henry and George Washington. In 
January, 1800, the Madison Report was passed, and 
at the same time the Virginia Assembly gave instruc- 
tions to the two Virginia senators, S. T. Mason and Wilson 
C. Nicholas, to support the opposition to the Alien and 
Sedition Laws, and to oppose the passing of any law 
founded on a principle so novel and so monstrous that the 
common law of England is in force under the government 
of the United States. They were also to endeavour to 
procure a reduction of the army, and to prevent an aug- 
mentation of the navy in the interest of the taxpayers. 
Here again the spirit of Jefferson was embodied in the 

1 See XX, American State Papers, 181. 


[ 366 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


policy of his native state. He had the satisfaction also of 
seeing his friend, James Monroe, elected Governor to 
crown the triumph,of the Republican party in Virginia. 

The Presidential election was now at hand. As Republi- 
can candidate Jefferson took no prominent part in the 
campaign. His letters are not very numerous, but there 
are enough to show that he watched the progress of events 
with growing confidence. 

William Cobbett had returned home to adopt a new réle, 
and consequently Porcupine had been discontinued. Ina 
letter to his friend Joseph Priestley (January 18, 1800) Jef- 
ferson observes, after thanking him for his wore as a 
pamphleteer on the Republican side :— 

“How deeply have I been chagrined and mortified at the persecu- 
tions which fanaticism and monarchy have excited against you even 
here! At first I believed it was merely a continuance of the English 
persecution. But I observe that on the demise of Porcupine, and di- 
vision of his inheritance between Fenno and Brown, the latter (though 
succeeding only to the Federal portion of Porcupinism, not the Angh- 
can which is Fenno’s part) serves up for the palate of his sect dishes of 
abuse against you as high seasoned as Porcupine’s were. You have 
sinned against Church and King and can therefore never be forgiven.” 
In this letter he consults Priestley about a plan to estab- 
lish a “liberal and modern” university for Virginia, which 
would be worthy of state support. It failed for the time; 
but it was to be realised by Jefferson in his old age. 

When the news arrived that Bonaparte had drawn up a 
new Constitution and had got himself appointed First 
Consul for ten years, Jefferson could not believe that he 
would declare for Royalty; for if he did “‘he has but a 
few days to live. In a nation of so much enthusiasm there 
must be a million of Brutuses who will devote themselves 
to death to destroy him.’ He thought it more likely 
that the new policy was that of a single executive to put 


[ 367 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


an end to the broils and factions of the Directory. In 
any case he feared that the French nation had yet to wade 
through half a century of disorder and convulsions. Some 
Republicans thought that Bonaparte had usurped the 
government in order to make it a free one. Jefferson re- 
plied: ‘‘Whatever his talents may be for war, we have 
no proofs that he is skilled in forming governments friendly 
to the people. Wherever he has meddled we have seen 
nothing but fragments of the old Roman government 
stuck into materials with which they can form no cohe- 
sion: we see the bigotry of an Italian to the ancient splen- 
dour of his country, but nothing which bespeaks a lumi- 
nous view of the organization of rational government.” 
But he still cherished a hope, as we learn from a letter to 
old Samuel Adams, February 26, that Bonaparte would 
have the head, if not the heart, to “calculate truly the 
difference between the fame of a Washington and a Crom- 
well.” However that might be, he had in fact transferred 
the destinies of the French republic from the civil to the 
military arm. ‘‘Some will use this as a lesson against the 
practicability of Republican government. I read it as a 
lesson against the danger of standing armies.” 
Meanwhile, the conflict between Republicans and Fed- 
eralists, embittered by incessant state prosecutions under 
the sedition law, had brought about such dissensions in 
Pennsylvania that Jefferson feared a situation in which 
Hamilton — “our Bonaparte — surrounded by his com- 
rades in arms — may step in to give us political salvation 
in his way.”” But apart from this transient fear of a coup 
d état, all the omens were favourable. By March 4, Jef- 
ferson could write to Madison: ‘‘the Federalists begin 
to be very seriously alarmed about their election next fall. 
Their speeches in private, as well as their public and pri- 


[ 368 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


vate demeanor to me, indicate it strongly.”’ The event, 
he thought, would depend upon Pennsylvania, Jersey, 
and New York. North Carolina was in a precarious con- 
dition. ““The lawyers all tories’” — so he wrote on April 
7 — “the people substantially republican, but uninformed 
and deceived by the lawyers, who are elected of necessity 
because [there are] few other candidates. The medicine 
for that state must be very mild and secretly administered. 
But nothing should be spared to give them true informa- 
tion.” In April New York went Republican, and when 
Congress rose early in May Jefferson noted that the Fed- 
eralists had not been able to pass a single strong measure 
in the lower house during the whole Session. The Federal 
majority had melted away, though the Senate remained 
undismayed to the last. But Jefferson was not carried 
away by elation. Though confident of the ultimate 
triumph of Republican principles — with simplicity, 
economy, and religious and civil freedom as their corner- 
stones — he thought that one or two elections more might 
be necessary. Nor does he appear to have been tor- 
mented by personal ambition. During the Session he 
was writing to friends to get him vocabularies of the 
Cherokee and other important Indian dialects to add to 
his collection, as he proposed to arrange all his Indian 
vocabularies for the press during the summer. A curious 
occupation for a candidate on the eve of perhaps the most 
important Presidential election in the history of the United 
States ! 

After returning fron Monticello he wrote hardly any 
letters. Odious calumnies against his private character, 
circulated by the Federalist newspapers, were giving acute 
pain to his family. Only once did he stoop to notice them. 
A Christian minister in Connecticut, the Reverend Cotton 


[ 369 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Mather Smith of Shena, had denounced him for obtaining 
his property by fraud and robbery; stating that in one 
instance he had defrauded a widow and fatherless chil- 
dren, in an estate to which he was executor, of ten thou- 
sand pounds sterling. A correspondent sent him details 
of this vile slander. Every tittle of it is fable, wrote Jef- 
ferson. He had only twice been an executor, and in only 
one of those two cases were there a widow and children. 
““She was my sister. She retained and managed the estate 
in her own hands, and no part of it waseverin mine... . 
Again, my property is all patrimonial except about seven 
or eight hundred pounds worth of land purchased by my- 
self... . If Mr. Smith therefore thinks the precepts of 
the gospel intended for those who preach them as well as 
for others, he will doubtless feel the duties of repentance.”’ 
But he refused to prosecute any of these slanders in the 
courts, and forbade his correspondent to allow even this 
reply to Smith of Shena to appear in the newspapers. 
Though his religious opinions differed little from those of 
President Adams — they might both pass for Unitarians 
— the ferocity of the ‘unco guid’ in this campaign was 
directed against Jefferson. Many lying pamphlets were 
issued ; conversations with Mazzei, Bishop Madison, and 
others were forged in order to show that Jefferson was an 
infidel who hated Christianity — all for political purposes. 
“The returning good sense of our country,” wrote Jef- 
ferson, September, 1800, in one of his last letters before 
the election, “‘ threatens abortion to their hopes, and they 
believe that any portion of power confided to me will be 
exerted in opposition to their schemes; and they believe 
rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal 
hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of 
man.’ In all Jefferson’s career it is impossible to find a 


[ 370 ] 


Republicanism at Bay 


single instance of religious conformity or of pharisaical 
acquiescence for political purposes in the prevalent the- 
ology which he believed to be false; and it is a wonder- 
ful tribute to the good sense and right feeling of his fellow 
countrymen that the charges of unorthodoxy and infidelity 
and all the mud scattered from pulpit and press during 
1799 and 1800 failed to prevent his election. 

While Jefferson was enjoying the summer at Monticello 
the unlucky President was engaged in a sharp controversy 
with the Hamiltonians. In May he dismissed MacHenry 
from the War Department and Pickering from the Secre- 
taryship of State, replacing the latter with John Marshall. 
Hamilton took his revenge by writing a pamphlet against 
Adams, and by a series of intrigues which went far to de- 
stroy the electoral prospects of the Federalist party. When 
Adams, in spite of Hamilton, was nominated Federalist 
candidate for the Presidency with Charles Pinckney for 
the Vice Presidency, Hamilton again endeavoured (un- 
successfully) to secure that Pinckney’s vote should exceed 
Adams. With Jefferson as candidate for the Presidency 
the republicans associated for the Vice Presidency, Aaron 
Burr, whose skilful management of their organization in 
New York had completely outwitted Hamilton and had 
done much to ensure victory. The elections took place in 
November. When the votes were counted it was found 
that Jefferson and Burr had each received 73 electoral 
votes, Adams 65, Pinckney 64, and Jay 1. 

Not foreseeing the tie with Burr, which would carry the 
election to the House of Representatives, Jefferson began 
to form his Cabinet. He chose Madison for the Depart- 
ment of State and Gallatin for the Treasury, and invited 
Robert Livingston to take over the Navy. At the same 
-time he wrote to Burr regretting that his election to the 


[371] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Vice Presidency would deprive him of his talents in the 
Cabinet. But as soon as the tie was known, the Federal- 
ists began to consider how they might either defeat the 
election altogether, or make Burr President, or extract 
pledges from Jefferson which would prevent him from 
putting republicanism into practice. 

On December 26 Jefferson told Madison that the Fed- 
eralists appeared determined to prevent an election, and 
talked of passing a Bill handing over the government to 
Jay, or to Marshall. On February 11 the election went 
to the House of Representatives and for six days the 
balloting went on without a decision. In the midst 
of the uncertainty Jefferson informed Madison of at- 
tempts to make terms with him; but “I have declared 
to them unequivocally that I would not receive the gov- 
ernment on capitulation, that I would not go into it with 
my hands tied.”’ Their design of passing a law to put the 
government into the hands of a Federalist officer was met 
by an open declaration that on the day such an act passed 
the Middle States would arm, and that no such usurpation 
would be submitted to: “This first shook them; and 
they were completely alarmed at the resource for which 
we declared, to wit a convention to reorganize the gov- 
ernment and to amend it. The very word convention 
gives them the horrors, as in the present democratical 
spirit of America they fear they should lose some of the 
favorite morsels of the constitution.” At last after a 
week’s balloting a number of the Federalists, seeing that 
they could not force Burr on the Republicans, abandoned 
the idea of obstructing the popular will by cheating Jef- 
ferson out of the presidency. Accordingly the Federalist 
electors for several of the states put in blanks, and Jef- 
ferson was elected by ten states against four on February 


[ 372 | 


Republicanism at Bay 


17. Oddly enough Hamilton, when he despaired of a 
Federalist administration, told his friends that it would 
be better to make terms with Jefferson than with Burr. 
Whether or no Hamilton’s view had any influence cannot 
be ascertained; but it is certain that it was dictated by 
the bitterness of his animosity against Burr, which far 
exceeded his hatred of Jefferson, rather than by any feeling 
for constitutional propriety, or any desire that effect 
should be given to the verdict of the electors. 

John Adams took his defeat badly. The Federalist 
Party in the last. few weeks of its ascendancy had hurried 
through a Judiciary Act for the purpose of increasing its 
control of Law and Justice and of quartering still more 
of their number on the taxpayer. Under this Act sixteen 
new Federal judgeships with a contingent of attorneys, 
clerks, and marshals were created. Adams after the elec- 
tion of Jefferson had appointed a large number of par- 
tisans and spent the evening of March 3 with John 
Marshall, signing the commissions of the new judges. 
Then, before sunrise on the 4th of March he drove 
away from the White House. This was the end of Fed- 
eralist ascendancy and the beginning of the end of the 
Federalist Party. 

Three years later, in a correspondence with Mrs. Adams, 
Jefferson admitted that this was the one act of John Adams 
which ever gave him a moment’s personal displeasure : — 

“I did consider his last appointments to office as personally unkind. 
They were from among my most ardent political enemies, from whom 
no faithful cooperation could ever be expected; and laid me under the 
embarrassment of acting through men whose views were to defeat mine, 
or to encounter the odium of putting others in their places. It seems 
but common justice to leave a successor free to act by instruments of 


his own choice. If my respect for him did not permit me to ascribe the 
whole blame to the influence of others, it left something for friendship 


ER7sl 


Thomas Jefferson 


to forgive; and after brooding over it for some little time, and not 
always resisting the expression of it, I forgave it cordially, and returned 
to the same state of esteem and respect for him which had so long 
subsisted.” 


The Federalist lawyers, who got their commissions on 
the last night of the Adams administration, were called the 
Midnight Judges, and the story as handed down by 
tradition is worth re-telling. To appreciate it we must 
remember that 12 p.m. on March 3, 1801 was the magical 
moment at which the Presidency and the whole executive 
power passed from Adams to Jefferson. The new place- 
men had been selected, but their commissions had not 
all been signed and issued from the Department of State. 
Though he had been appointed Chief Justice, John 
Marshall was still acting as Secretary of State, and was 
busy on the night of March 3 filling in these commissions. 
Jefferson knew what was going on. He gave his own 
watch to Levi Lincoln, whom he had appointed Attorney 
General, and ordered him to take possession of the State 
Department at midnight and not to allow a single paper 
to be removed from it after that hour. The rest of the 
story may be told in Sarah Randolph’s words : — 


“Mr. Lincoln accordingly entered Judge Marshall’s office at the 
appointed time. ‘I had been ordered by Mr. Jefferson,’ he said to the 
Judge, ‘to take possession of this office and its papers.’ ‘Why Mr. 
Jefferson is not yet qualified,’ exclaimed the astonished Chief Justice. 
“Mr. Jefferson considers himself in the light of an executor, bound to 
take charge of the papers of the Government until he is duly qualified,’ 
was thereply. ‘Butitis not yet twelve o’clock,’ said Judge Marshall, 
taking out his watch. Mr. Lincoln pulled out his, and showing it to 
him said, “This is the President’s watch and rules the hour.’ 

Judge Marshall could make no appeal from this, and was forced to 
retire, casting a farewell look upon the commissions lying on the table 
before him. In after years he used to laugh and say he had been 


[374] 


Republicanism at Bay 


allowed to pick up nothing but his hat. He had however one or two of 
the commissions in his pocket, and the gentlemen who received them 
were called thereafter ‘John Adams’ midnight Judges.’ ” 


In Beveridge’s Life of Fohn Marshall (Vol. II, pp. 560- 
562) an attempt is made to discredit the best part of the 
story : — “Jefferson,” writes Senator Beveridge, ‘“‘asked 
Marshall to administer to him the presidential oath of 
office on the following day. Considering his curiously 
vindictive nature, it is unthinkable that Jefferson would 
have done this, had he sent his newly-appointed Attorney- 
General at the hour of midnight to stop Marshall’s con- 
summation of Adams’ ‘indecent’ plot.’’ But in the first 
place Jefferson was not at all vindictive, but of a dis- 
position generally charitable and forgiving. And in the 
second place, even if he had been vindictive, there is no 
reason at all why he should not have called upon the Chief 
Justice to administer the oath of office. 


[375] 


BOOK VI 


PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
CHAPTER I 
JEFFERSON’S FIRST ADMINISTRATION 


‘¢ Peace hath her victories 
No less renowned than war.”’ 
— MILTON 


States contained approximately five and a half mil- 

lion persons, of whom nearly one-fifth were negro 
slaves. Of this population two-thirds lived along the At- 
lantic seaboard within fifty miles of tidewater, while 
beyond the Alleghanies—the long range, variously 
named, which runs from Vermont to Georgia bisecting 
Pennsylvania — dwelt some half million settlers. The 
three most important of these western settlements were 
in the vicinity of Pittsburg, along the Ohio River, and in 
Kentucky. The frontier had advanced, leaving behind it 
this wild mountainous region. Roads were few and bad, 
even in the older communities. 

The United States was still mainly rural and agricul- 
tural. The total population of all the towns with more 
than ten thousand inhabitants was only about 200,000. 
Philadelphia with 70,000 stood first in size and impor- 
tance, New York with 60,000, and Boston with 25,000 
came next. A number of small manufactures had been 


[ 376 | 


if 1801 when Jefferson became President, the United 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


started in New England; but American capital was 
_ mostly invested in agriculture and shipping. 

Washington, the new capital of the Union, was a most 
uncomfortable place to live in. Its miseries have been 
painted by Henry Adams in the first volume of his History 
of the United States 1:— 


“When in the summer of 1800 the government was transferred to 
what was regarded by most people as a fever stricken morass, the half 
finished White House stood in a naked field overlooking the Potomac, 
with two awkward department buildings near it, a single row of brick 
houses, and a few isolated dwellings within sight, and nothing more; 
until across a swamp, a mile and a half away, the shapeless unfinished 
Capitol was seen, two wings without a body, ambitious enough in de- 
sign to make more grotesque the nature of its surroundings. The con- 
ception proved that the United States understood the vastness of their 
task, and were willing to stake something on their faith in it. Never 
did hermit or saint condemn himself to solitude more conscientiously 
than Congress and the Executive in removing the government from 
Philadelphia to Washington. The discontented men clustered together 
in eight or ten boarding houses as near as possible to the Capitol, and 
there lived, like a convent of monks, with no other amusement or oc- 
cupation than that of going from their lodgings to the Chambers and 
back again. Even private wealth could do little to improve their situa- 
tion, for there was nothing that wealth could buy; there were in Wash- 
ington no shops, or markets, or skilled labour, or commerce, or people. 
Public efforts and lavish use of public money could alone make the 
place tolerable; but Congress doled out funds for this national and 
personal object with so sparing a hand, that their Capitol threatened 
to crumble in pieces and crush Senate and House under the ruins long 
before the building was complete.” 


The condition of the roads round Washington is the 
subject of a letter from Jefferson to Madison. Madison 
was driving from Virginia, and Jefferson was anxious that 


1 The leading authority on the history of the United States during Jefferson’s 
Presidency. As it will be quoted frequently I shall not trouble my readers with 
the references. 


[377] 


Thomas Jefferson 


the chariot should not come to grief. His directions, it 
will be seen, are based on personal experience : — 


“From Songsters I tried the road by Ravensworth, which comes. 
into the turnpike road four and a half miles below Fairfax courthouse. 
There are about two miles of it which, I think, cannot be passed by 
your carriage without oversetting; and consulting with Colonel Wren 
who knows both roads, he says there is no comparison, that you must 
absolutely come by Fairfax courthouse, all that road being practicable 
till you come to Little’s lane, which you have to encounter whatever 
way you come. I passed it yesterday, a wagon being then stuck fast 
in it, nor do I suppose any four-wheeled carriage could then have got 
through the spot where the wagon was without stalling. But two days 
of wind and sun will by to-morrow make immense odds in it, so that I 
hope you will be able to pass it. 


“T have met with Mr. Gaines and a Mr. Beauspoke at Brown’s. 
They live near. I spoke of the difficulty of your getting up the Bull 
Run hill. They agreed to take each a horse and draw your carriage up. 
Accept their offer by all means, as however steady your horses they 
will be in the utmost peril of balking, and should they once begin there 
are other hills sufficient to make them give you a great deal of vexa- 
tion. The Bull Run hill is really the worst I ever saw on a public road. 
Still, let nothing tempt you to go by Centersville, as on that route the 
whole is cut by wagons into mud holes.” 


On the day of his inauguration (March 4, 1801) Jeffer- 
son put aside all the pomp and ceremonial of his predeces- 
sors. According to one account the rode from his lodgings 
without a guard or servant, hitched his horse’s bridle to 
the palisade and then entered the Capitol to deliver his 
Inaugural Address. This was the keynote: — 

“We are all Republicans: we are all Federalists. If 
there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this 
Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand 
undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error 


* That of the traveller John Davis, which is more picturesque than the nar- 
rative of Edward Thornton, the British Minister. 


[ 378 ] 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to 
combat it.” 

Jefferson’s First Inaugural was at one time almost as 
familiar to Americans as the Declaration of Independence. 
Its main purpose was to allay the passions raised by the 
violent agitations of the past eight years; but it also fore- 
shadowed a new system of government. After enumerat- 
ing the advantages they already enjoyed, the President 
added : — 


“With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a 
happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens, — 
a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring 
one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own 
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the 
mouth of labour the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good gov- 
ernment, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.” 


After the Address the oath of office was administered 
by John Marshall, the new Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court, who had been so busy the night before signing the 
midnight appointments. It is a curious thing that the 
three principal figures at the ceremony should have been 
Jefferson, Marshall, his most powerful antagonist, and 
Aaron Burr, whom Jefferson was to prosecute and Mar- 
shall to acquit. 

Many republican stalwarts were dismayed by the mild- 
ness of the sentiments enunciated in the First Inaugural. 
They had looked for some spectacular recognition of the 
great revolution that had taken place, and some indica- 
tion of drastic changes. But Jefferson, once the victory 
was gained, showed that he was a magnanimous states- 
man, as well as a superb party leader. 

To John Dickinson he wrote on March 6 in response to 
congratulations : — 


[ 379 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


“The storm through which we have passed has been tremendous 
indeed. The tough sides of our Argosy have been thoroughly tried. 
. . . We shall put her on her republican tack, and she will now show 
by the beauty of her motion the skill of her builders. . . . A just and 
solid republican government maintained here will be a standing monu- 
ment and example for the aim and imitation of the people of other 
countries; and I join with you in the hope and belief that they will see 
from our example that a free government is of all others the most 
energetic.” 


In the hour of victory, Jefferson found special satisfac- 
tion in the defeat of those who had “‘discountenanced all 
advances in science as dangerous innovations,” and had ~ 
“endeavoured to render philosophy and republicanism 
terms of reproach.”’ The victory moreover, as he wrote 
to a correspondent, had furnished ‘“‘a new proof of the 
falsehood of Montesquieu’s doctrine that a republic can 
be preserved only in a small territory.”’ 

In spite of the midnight appointments and other prov- 
ocations he was bent on conciliating the majority of the 
Federalists, who (unlike most of their leaders) were real 
republicans. Nor would he deprive civil servants of office 
on the ground of political sympathies, even though his 
predecessor had adopted the spoils system. He felt that 
the late leaders of the Federalists ‘“were almost with- 
out followers,” and had “‘retreated into the stronghold 
of the judiciary.”’ As to what he called the appointments 
and disappointments of existing and would-be office hold- 
ers he decided that “‘all appointments to civi/ offices dur- 
ing pleasure, made after the event of the election was cer- 
tainly known to Mr. Adams, are considered as nullities.” 
Altogether 24 of the new officials were dismissed. The 
President also resolved that he would never appoint a 
relative, however meritorious. As he put it to one of them, 
George Jefferson, March 27: — 


[ 380 ] 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


“The public will never be made to believe that an appointment 
of a relative is made on the ground of merit alone, uninfluenced by 
family views; nor can they ever see with approbation offices, the dis- 
posals of which they trust to their Presidents for public purposes, 
divided out as family property. Mr. Adams degraded himself in- 
finitely by his conduct on this subject, as General Washington had 
done himself the greatest honour. With two such examples to proceed 
by I should be doubly inexcusable to err. It is true that this places the 
relations of the President in a worse situation than if he were a stranger ; 
but the public good . . . requires this sacrifice.” 


His policy towards office seekers did not satisfy all the 
party editors or newspapers. Good feeling, he explained 
to another correspondent, is not for the interest of the 
printers. “‘They, like the clergy, live by the zeal they can 
kindle and the schism they can create.” 

In reply to a remonstrance from New Haven republi- 
cans, who felt that a change in the administration ought 
to produce a change in the subordinate offices, he laments 
the idea that any one should deem it necessary for all of- 
ficers to think with their principal, and that half society 
should thus be interdicted from government and _ pro- 
scribed as unworthy of trust. After making the proper 
corrections he would “‘return with joy to that state of 
things when the only question concerning a candidate shall 
be: is he honest? is he capable? is he faithful to the con- 
stitution ?”’ 

In Madison Jefferson had an excellent foreign secre- 
tary; but the policy was Jefferson’s, and sometimes he 
took the pen himself. Just before Livingston started 
for his mission to France the President found time to 
write him a careful letter (Sept. 9) on “‘the great ques- 
tion of the maritime law of nations which at present agi- 
tates Europe,” treating of contraband, blockade, search, 
and generally of the rights of neutrals. Though they 


[ 381 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


would not engage in war to establish true principles, he 
wished his ambassador to understand that the doctrine 
“‘free bottoms free goods”’ was that which would carry 
the wishes of the American nation. The opposing doc- 
trine that the rights of peaceful neutrals must give way 
to the convenience of those who prefer plundering and 
murdering one another was a monstrous one. But, as 
he wrote to Short, they must keep out of European 
politics : — 

“to be entangled with them would be a much greater evil than a tem- 
porary acquiescence in the false principles which have prevailed. 
Peace is our most important interest and a recovery from debt. We 
feel ourselves strong and daily growing stronger. The census just now 
concluded shows we have added to our population a third of what it was 
ten years ago. This will be a duplication in 23 or 24 years. If we can 
delay but for a few years the necessity of vindicating the laws of nature 
on the ocean we shall be the more sure of doing it with effect. The day 
is within my time as well as yours when we may say by what laws other 
nations shall treat us on the sea. And We will say it.” 

On the financial side some of his supporters were 
alarmed on discovering that Jefferson had decided to 
abolish the whole of the internal taxes. True they were 
costly to collect and involved the maintenance of a host 
of officials, whose patronage was thought very valuable 
for party purposes. But Jefferson was resolute. These 
taxes only produced a million of dollars, and with Galla- 
tin’s invaluable assistance he expected to economise at the 
rate of two or three millions a year. They counted on 
enough revenue to support the government, pay interest 
on the public debt, and discharge the principal in fifteen 
years. Jefferson looked upon unnecessary officials as 
parasites; and he took a double delight in suppressing 
taxes and collectors of taxes simultaneously. A letter of 
April 2, 1802, to Koskiusko, tells how he is engaged in dis- 


[ 382 | 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


arming executive patronage by suppressing unnecessary 
offices, and mentions the fury of the Federalist leaders. 
They are impotent, he says, and will soon only be heard 
of in the newspapers “which serve as chimneys to carry 
off noxious vapours and smoke.” 

On March 5, the Senate confirmed the Cabinet ap- 
pointments of Madison as Secretary of State, Henry Dear- 
born of Massachusetts, as Secretary of War, and Levi 
Lincoln, also of Massachusetts, as Attorney General. 
Albert Gallatin was destined for the Treasury; but his 
name was not presented until after the new Congress met. 
Robert Smith of Maryland was appointed Secretary of the 
Navy, and Gideon Granger of Connecticut Postmaster- 
General. This completed the Cabinet. It proved to be a 
singularly harmonious body. Madison and Gallatin were 
of course the principal figures. Gallatin, a financier of the 
first rank, with a passion for public economy worthy of 
his chief, was a Genevan by birth. A brilliant talker and 
effective debater, with an unusually large fund of politi- 
cal courage, he had proved himself easily first among the 
republicans in mastery of finance and economics. ‘Three 
more agreeable men than Jefferson, Madison, and Galla- 
tin,” says Henry Adams, “were never collected round the 
dinner table of the White House; and their difference in 
age was enough to add zest to their friendship; for Jef- 
ferson was born in 1743, Madison in 1751, and Gallatin in 
W7Ots 

A republican simplicity was at once introduced into the 
new capital. Ceremony disappeared. The President was 
accessible to visitors at all times. Levees were abandoned. 
He kept open house and entertained all comers with true 
Virginian hospitality. ‘“‘His way,” wrote Senator Plumer 
of New Hampshire, December 25, 1802, “‘is to have about 


[ 383 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


ten members of Congress at a time. We sat down to the 
table at four and rose at six and walked immediately into 
another room and drank coffee. We hada very good dinner 
with a profusion of fruits and sweetmeats. The wine was 
the best I ever drank, particularly the champagne, which 
was delicious.” At these dinners precedence and rank 
were abolished. The diners sat where they pleased. Some 
of the Foreign Ministers could hardly breathe in such an 
atmosphere, and sent bitter complaints home. 

John Quincy Adams gives us a glimpse in his diary of 
a conversation at Jefferson’s table. There were fourteen 
present, nearly all Congressmen and Senators : — 


“At dinner there was much amusing conversation between him 
[Jefferson] and Dr. Mitchell, although altogether desultory. There was, 
as usual a dissertation upon wines, not very edifying. Mr. Jefferson 
said that the Epicurean philosophy came nearest to the truth, in his 
opinion, of any ancient system pf philosophy, but that it had been 
misunderstood and misinterpreted. He wished the work of Gassendi 
concerning it had been translated. It was the only accurate account 
of it extant. I mentioned Lucretius. He said that was only a part — 
only the zatural philosophy. But the moral philosophy was only to be 
found in Gassendi. Dr. Mitchell mentioned Mr. Fulton’s steamboat 
as an invention of great importance. To which Mr. Jefferson, assent- 
ing, added, “and I think his torpedoes a valuable invention too.” He 
then enlarged upon the certainty of their effect, and adverted to some 
of the obvious objections against them, which he contended were not 
conclusive. ... Mr. Jefferson said that he had always been ex- 
tremely fond of agriculture and knew nothing about it; but the person 
who united with other sciences the greatest agricultural knowledge of 
any man he knew was Mr. Madison. He was the best farmer in the 
world.” 


On another occasion Jefferson turned the conversation 
to the French Revolution and remarked how contrary to 
all expectations this great douleversement had turned out. 
It seemed as if everything in that country for the last 


[ 384 ] 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


twelve or fifteen years had been a dream. He wished the 
French people could return to the constitution of 1789. 
“‘Jefferson’s personality during these eight years,” says 
Henry Adams, “‘appeared to be the government, and im- 
pressed itself, like that of Bonaparte, although by a dif- 
ferent process, on the mind of the nation. In the village 
simplicity of Washington society he was more than a 
king, for he was alone in social as well as political promi- 
nence. Except the British Legation, no house in Washing- 
ton was open to general society. The whole mass of poli- 
ticilans, even the Federalists, were dependent on Jefferson 
and ‘the Palace’ for amusement, and if they refused to 
go there, they ‘lived like bears, brutalized and stupefied.’”’ 
Although refinement of manners, easy dignity, and 
conversational charm, adorned by scholarship, science, 
and familiar intercourse with the best society of Paris, 
made Jefferson’s hospitable and well-furnished table an 
oasis in the squalid desert of Washington, yet the Presi- 
dent contrived to mix a good deal of republicanism with 
his viands. We could imagine him like a character in 
Juvenal producing such wine and such toasts as Thrasea 
and Helvidius used to drink on the birthdays of Brutus 
and Cassius. It was thought that he made an affectation 
of republican simplicity and unconventionality, and that 
some of the shocks he administered to foppery and flum- 
mery were too severe. Besides abolishing levees and other 
tawdry imitations of court ceremonial (which had been 
furbished up in New York and Philadelphia for Wash- 
ington, who tolerated, and Adams, who enjoyed them), 
Jefferson took pains to impress upon the diplomatic corps, 
trained in the bows and curtseys of European drawing 
‘rooms to regard these as essentials, that they are but the 
servile marks of a semi-barbarous tyranny, or trifles more 


[ 385 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


worthy of a nursery than of the manly dignity of a free 
society. One morning, when the Danish Minister called 
to see him, the President appeared in slippers. This drew 
from the Minister a defence of formalities, whereupon the 
President improved the occasion by a story of Ferdinand, 
King of Naples, who had complained to his Minister Ca- 
raccioli of the irksomeness of court ceremonial and asked 
whether he could not be elieved of his sufferings. By way 
of showing that it would not be safe to gratify his master’s 
wishes Caraccioli remarked: “‘Your Majesty must re- 
member that you yourself are but a ceremony.” 

The British Minister Merry proved himself a perfect 
type of the diplomatic prig. On one occasion, when Mr. and 
Mrs. Merry were guests along with Mr. and Mrs. Madi- 
son, the President committed an offence so serious that 
Mr. Merry declined further invitations. For when dinner 
was announced Jefferson, who happened to be talking to 
Mrs. Madison, conducted her into the dining room. The 
Federalist newspapers pretended to regard this as a 
studied insult, and there was a great fuss about it. Madi- 
son had to explain the whole affair to Monroe, in order 
that he might explain it to the British Government; but 
Monroe was able to reply that Merry was wrong even as 
to his claim of precedence, since in England Mrs. Monroe 
had been postponed to the wife of an under-Secretary ! 
Subsequently Jefferson showed his good sense and amia- 
bility by inquiring through the Swedish Chargé whether, 
if Merry were invited to a family dinner with the Presi- 
dent, he would accept the invitation. The answer being 
in the affirmative Jefferson wrote the invitation in his 
own hand; whereupon the insufferable Merry wrote to 
Madison, Secretary of State, to know whether he was 
invited in his private or his official character. If in the 


[ 386 | 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


former he must await His Majesty’s permission to accept 
it, if in the latter he must first have assurance that he 
would receive the attention. and respect due to His Maj- 
esty’s envoy. 

Though he pursued a policy of conciliation towards the 
Federalists, Jefferson did nothing to placate the religious 
prejudices of New England. On the contrary one of his 
first acts gave fresh offence to the orthodox. This was a 
letter to Thomas Paine, then in France, offering him con- 
veyance to America in an United States frigate. The let- 
ter also expressed admiration of Paine’s work, and the 
hope that he would be able to carry it on in America. The 
name of Paine was anathema in the conventicles; and 
when the letter was published, all the old charges of in- 
fidelity and immorality were revived against the Presi- 
dent. In the campaign of calumny Callender, a depraved 
journalist of Scottish origin, who had been refused a job 
under government, joined the Federalists and black- 
guarded Jefferson with all the ardour of a disappointed 
mercenary.! 

Before the Administration had been in power six months 
it was engaged in a war against the Barbary pirates; and 
the Navy, which Jefferson had at first desired to shut up 
in port,” was sent off to fight in the Mediterranean. Both 
Washington and Adams had paid tribute to Tripoli for 
the protection of American commerce. Jefferson had dis- 
approved of these payments, and when the Bashaw made 
some insolent demands, he sent a squadron to hunt the 
pirates down. War was declared in August, and fighting 


1 A low class Richmond paper, edited by Callender, throve for a time on 
the circumstantial lies which he circulated against Jefferson’s private life and 
character. 

2To avoid war and promote economy. 


[ 387 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


continued during the remainder of his First Administra- 
tion, after which the Mediterranean was at last made 
safe for the American flag. 

The new Congress met in December, when Jefferson, de- 
parting from the custom of his predecessors, sent a written 
message, requiring no reply. After commenting on the 
coming of peace in Europe with the Treaty of Amiens, and 
the success of American frigates against the Tripolitans, he 
turned to internal affairs. The recent census showed that 
the population had doubled in twenty-two years, while 
revenue had increased in even greater proportion. He 
thought the time had come when the country could dis- 
pense with all internal taxation. But to diminish bur- 
dens they must diminish expenses : — 


“Considering the general tendency to multiply offices and depend- 
encies, and to increase the ultimate term of burden which the citizen 
can bear, it behooves us to avail ourselves of every occasion which 
presents itself for taking off the surcharge, that it never may be seen 
here that, after leaving to labour the smallest portion of its earnings 
on which it can subsist, government shall itself consume the residue 
of what it was instituted to guard.” 


He therefore recommended a reduction of the civil list, 
the army, and the navy. It has been thought strange 
that he did not embark on a reform of the Constitution. 
The key to the conflict between the Federalists and the 
States Rights men, says Dr. Channing, lay in the powers 
of the Supreme Court. Jefferson complained at the be- 
ginning of his administration that the Federalists had re- 
tired into the Supreme Court as “into a stronghold.” 
Why then did he not propose an amendment of the Con- 
stitution, or of the Judiciary Act of 1797, “the triumph 
of Federalist centralisation”? An answer to this question 
has been given by Henry Adams : — 


[ 388 | 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


“Jefferson wished to overthrow the Federalists and annihilate the 
last opposition before attempting radical reforms. Confident that 
State Rights were safe in his hands, he saw no occasion to alarm the 
people with legislation directed against past rather than future dan- 
gers. His party acquiesced, but not without misgivings.” 


With all respect to a brilliant historian I should have 
thought the true reason to be that Jefferson, like Cobden 
sixty years later, thought Peace and Retrenchment far 
more important than constitutional reform, even if con- 
stitutional reform were practicable. 

The republican party now had a majority in both 
Houses of Congress. Their first task was the establish- 
ment of the new financial policy of Jefferson and Gallatin. 
The Secretaries of War and the Navy carried out sub- 
stantial economies; all internal taxes were swept away, and 
at one stroke nearly half the government patronage was 
abolished. A sinking fund was organised under which 
the public debt was to be paid off in 16 years. These two 
measures, says Adams, were the foundation of Jefferson’s 
policy. He meant to secure the United States against 
danger of war, not by rivalry of armaments, but by mak- 
ing it to the interest of Europe to have free commercial 
intercourse with America. It was a new system of gov- 
ernment based upon the utilitarian principle of enlight- 
ened selfishness. 

The Federalists offered little resistance to the Govern- 
ment’s financial measures, reserving their strength to 
oppose the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801 (passed just 
before Jefferson came into office) which had extended the 
functions and numbers of Federal judges. The debates 
on this issue were long and sharp; but on March 3 the 
Act was repealed. During this Session the Naturalisa- 
tion law was amended, five years’ residence being substi- 


[ 389 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


tuted for fourteen as a condition of citizenship. The State 
of Ohio was admitted to the Union, and the southwestern 
territory was yielded by Georgia to the Federal Govern- 
ment. These two measures strengthened the Adminis- 
tration. It gained two Senators by the admission of 
Ohio; and after the acquisition of the southwestern ter- 
ritory Jefferson — to quote Henry Adams — “was hence- 
forth better able to carry out his humane policy towards 
the Indians.” 

All the transactions of Jefferson’s first Administra- 
tion pale before the Louisiana purchase. Louisiana and 
the Floridas belonged to Spain; but in October, 1800, 
Napoleon, who was dreaming of a French Empire in the 
New World, procured their transference by a secret treaty 
to France. When a report of this reached him, Jefferson 
at once scented danger. But he waited for an opportu- 
nity. At last on April 18, 1802, he wrote to Chancellor 
Livingston, his Minister in Paris : — 


“The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France, 
works most sorely on the United States. On this subject the Secretary 
of State has written to you fully; yet I cannot forbear recurring to it 
personally, so deep is the impression it makes on my mind... . 
There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our 
natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the 
produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market, and from 
its fertility it will ere long yield more than half our whole produce, and 
contain more than half our inhabitants. France, placing herself in that 
door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. . . . The day that France 
takes possession of New Orleans, fixes the sentence which is to restrain 
her forever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two 
nations who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the 
ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British 
fleet and nation.” 


He desired Livingston to lay before the French govern- 
[ 390 ] 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


ment the danger of transforming the United States into 
an enemy : — 


“Will a few years possession of New Orleans add equally to the 
strength of France? She may say she needs Louisiana for the supply 
of her West Indies. She does not need it in time of peace, and in war 
she could not depend on them because they would be so easily inter- 
cepted. . . . Every eye in the United States is now fixed on the af- 
fairs of Louisiana. Perhaps nothing since the Revolutionary war, has 
produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation.” 


Livingston found Talleyrand, the French Foreign Min- 
ister, indisposed to negotiate, and no progress was made 
until October, 1802, when the Spanish authorities, who had 
not yet delivered the territory to France, closed the mouth 
of the Mississippi to American vessels by suspending the 
right of deposit. This naturally roused the fighting spirit 
of the Western settlers. They called loudly for strong 
measures, and the Federalists, eager to embarrass the 
President, lent their support. Jefferson took time by the 
forelock. He nominated Monroe as special envoy to 
France to aid Livingston, and secured an appropriation 
of two million dollars “‘to enable the Executive to com- 
mence with more effect a negotiation with the French and 
Spanish governments relative to the purchase from them 
of the island of New Orleans and the provinces of East 
and West Florida.”’ 

To make sure of Monroe, Jefferson wrote him an urgent 
letter on January 13 :— 


“ All eyes, all hopes are now fixed on you; and were you to decline, 
the chagrin would be universal. . . . Indeed, I know nothing which 
would produce such a shock. For on the event of this mission depend 
the future destinies of this republic. If we cannot by a purchase of 
the country insure to ourselves a course of perpetual peace and friend- 
ship with all nations, then as war cannot be distant, it behooves us 


[391 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


immediately to be preparing for that course, without, however, 
hastening it; and it may be necessary (on your failure on the 
continent) to cross the channel. We shall get entangled in European 
politics, and figuring more, be much less happy and prosperous. This 
can only be prevented by a successful issue of your present mission.”’ 

The march of events favoured American interests. A ~ 
French expedition to Haiti had failed to quell Toussaint’s 
revolt. Tired of the peace of Amiens Napoleon had de- 
cided to reopen the war with England. Until England was 
vanquished, the new world must remain unconquered ; 
and he needed money badly. On April 11, 1803, there- 
fore, he ordered his finance Minister, Barbé-Marbois, an 
old friend of Jefferson’s, to offer to sell the whole territory 
of Louisiana to the American Minister Livingston. 
Next day Monroe arrived. Only two million dollars had 
been voted by Congress, and that for New Orleans and 
the Floridas. The amount demanded by the French was 
at first 100 million francs, ten times the sum appro- 
priated.1. But Livingston and Monroe were fully pos- 
sessed of Jefferson’s views and did not hesitate to exceed 
their powers. They knew his hopes had not gone beyond 
New Orleans, but that he considered the whole territory 
as vital to the peaceful expansion of the Union. After 
some bargaining with Marbois, who had raised Napoleon’s 
price, the Commissioners at the end of April agreed to 
pay sixty million livres clear,? and assume liability for 
claims by American citizens for damages against the 
French. Great was Jefferson’s joy when the despatches 
of Livingston and Monroe arrived at Washington. But 
with joy, embarrassment was mingled; for the Constitu- 
tion made no provision for holding foreign territory, nor 


1It was agreed that 5.3 francs (equal to five livres eight sous) should be 
counted as the equivalent of a dollar. 
2 About 11,250,000 dollars. 


[ 392 ] 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


for incorporating foreign nations into the Union; and 
certainly did not vest any such power in the Executive. 
At first the President desired an amendment to the Con- 
stitution authorising the purchase, and indeed drafted 
one for the purpose. But Livingston and Monroe had 
assured him that delay might be dangerous — for Napo- 
leon might at any moment change his mind — and Jeffer- 
son had to weigh the national interest against constitu- 
tional propriety. “I confess,’ he wrote to Wilson C. 
Nicholas, September 7, 1803, “I think it important in 
the present case to set an example against broad construc- 
tion by appealing for new power to the people. If, how- 
ever, our friends shall think differently, certainly I shall 
acquiesce with satisfaction, confiding that the good sense 
of our country will correct evil construction when it shall 
produce ill effects.”’ 

Accordingly he summoned Congress to a special Ses- 
sion in October. The Senate immediately ratified the 
Treaty, and the House voted an issue of bonds to pay for 
the new territory. The only protests came from a small 
group of Federalists, who denounced the treaty as “un- 
constitutional,’ and questioned the validity of the title. 
The nation as a whole was well content with its bargain, 
though few could have guessed the future wealth and 
population of a region which was to add fourteen States 
to the Union. A further strain was put upon the doctrine 
of strict construction by an Act of March, 1804, providing 
for the government of the new territory, whereby it has 
been said the President “stepped into the shoes of the 
King of Spain.’’ He was empowered to appoint the Gov- 
ernor, the law-making council, the superior judges, and in 
fact to construct the whole machinery of administration, 
legislative, executive, and judicial, while the inhabitants 


[ 393 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


for the time being were allowed no participation in the 
Government. In his address to Congress on October 17 
the President surveyed the advantages gained by the ac- 
quisition of Louisiana and expressed a hope that no ad- 
ditional taxes would be required in consequence of the 
addition to the public debt. Three millions of the old 
debt had been discharged during the year, and the Treas- 
ury had a balance of nearly six million dollars in hand. 
Turning to the renewal of hostilities in Europe he said : — 


“We have seen with sincere concern the flames of war lighted up 
again in Europe and nations with which we have the most friendly and 
useful relations engaged in mutual destruction. While we regret the 
miseries in which we see others involved, let us bow with gratitude to 
that kind Providence which — inspiring with wisdom and moderation 
our late legislative councils while placed under the urgency of the great- 
est wrongs — guarded us from hastily entering into the same sanguinary 
conflict, and left us only to look on and to pity its ravages. These will 
be heaviest on those immediately engaged. Yet the nations pursuing 
peace will not be exempt from all evil. In the course of this conflict 
let it be our endeavour as it is our interest and desire to cultivate the 
friendship of the belligerent nations by every act of justice and of in- 
nocent kindness; to receive their armed vessels with hospitality from 
the distresses of the sea, but to administer the means of annoyance to 
none; to establish in our harbours such a police as may maintain law 
and order; to restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a 
war in which their country takes no part; to punish severely those 
persons, citizens, or aliens, who shall usurp the colour of our flag for 
vessels not entitled to it, infecting thereby with suspicion those of real 
Americans, and committing us into controversies for the redress of 
wrongs not our own; to exact from every nation the observance to- 
wards our vessels and citizens of those principles and practices which 
all civilised nations acknowledge; to merit the character of a just 
nation, and maintain that of an independent one, preferring every 
consequence to insult and habitual wrong.” 


These duties of neutrality he proceeded to enforce by an 
appeal to enlightened self interest : — 


[ 394 ] 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


“Separated by a wide ocean from the nations of Europe, and from 
the political interests which entangle them together, with productions 
and wants which render our commerce and friendship useful to them 
and theirs to us, it cannot be the interest of any to assail us nor ours 
to disturb them. We should be most unwise indeed were we to cast 
away the singular blessings of the position in which nature has placed 
us, the opportunities she has endowed us with of pursuing at a dis- 
tance from foreign intentions the paths of industry, peace, and happi- 
ness; of cultivating general friendship, and of bringing collisions of 
interest to the umpirage of reason rather than of force. How desirable 
then must it be in a government like ours to see its citizens adopt in- 
dividually the views, the interests, and the conduct, which their coun- 
try should pursue, divesting themselves of those passions and par- 
tialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and to embarrass and 
embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe.” 


To his intimate friend Dr. Priestley Jefferson confided 
his view of the Louisiana transaction in a letter of January 
29, 1804, showing that it was in no spirit of imperialism 
that he looked upon this great acquisition of territory. 
He had foreseen and provided for the event. But Bona- 
parte’s readiness to negotiate had been hastened by the 
rupture with Great Britain : — 


“The dénouement has been happy; and I confess I look to this du- 
plication of area for the extending of a government so free and economi- 
cal as ours, as a great achievement to the mass of happiness which is to 
ensue. Whether we remain one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and 
Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happi- 
ness of either part.! Those of the western confederacy will be as much 
our children and descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself 
as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and 
did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the 
duty and desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the 
eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which 
should fall within my power.” 

1QOne of the Federalist objections to the purchase of Louisiana was that it 


would separate the Union into an eastern and a western Federation because 
so large an area could not be controlled by one government. 


[395 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


The extent of the new territory of Louisiana was by no 
means certain. The treaty, unfortunately as it proved, 
had not defined the boundaries. Did it include Florida 
on the east and Texas on the west? Jefferson believed 
that it did, Monroe thought that Texas but not Florida 
was included. Jefferson took the problem with him to 
Monticello, and there during two months of the summer 
spent much time investigating it with the help of old maps 
and books. To Madison he wrote on August 25, 1803: 
‘“T have used my spare moments to investigate, by the 
help of my books here, the subject of Louisiana. I am 
satisfied our right to the Perdido is substantial, and can 
only be opposed by a quibble on form only; and our right 
westwardly to the Bay of St. Bernard may be strongly 
maintained.” 

And on March 31, 1804, he wrote to William Dunbar : — 


“Tn the first visit, after receiving the treaty, which I paid to Monti- 
cello, which was in August, I availed myself of what I have there to 
investigate the limits. While I was in Europe, I had purchased every- 
thing I could lay my hands on which related to any part of America, 
and particularly a pretty full collection of the English, French, and 
Spanish authors, on the subject of Louisiana. The information I got 
from these was entirely satisfactory, and I threw it into a shape which 
would easily take the form of a memorial. I now enclose you a copy 
ofitey 


This was perhaps the most important of the many 
occasions on which Jefferson employed the best private 
library in America for his country’s service. In 1804 
Congress authorised him to erect the Mobile Bay area 
into a customs district. It was done in spite of protests 
from the Spanish Minister, and during the next eight years 
the United States gradually absorbed more and more of 
the sea coast. 

[ 396 | 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


Jefferson’s vision pierced beyond the Mississippi and 
the Rockies. At the beginning of 1803 he persuaded Con- 
gress to make an appropriation for one of his pet projects 
— an expedition, which should explore the head waters 
of the Missouri River, and make its way to the Pacific. 
To lead the expedition he chose his private secretary, 
Captain Meriwether Lewis, and as second in command, 
Lieutenant William Clark, a brother of George Rogers 
Clark, of Revolutionary war fame. The choice was splen- 
didly justified; Jefferson’s character of Lewis, written 
after the death of that intrepid explorer, helps to explain 
the success of the enterprise : — 

“Of courage undaunted; possessing a firmness and perseverance 
of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its di- 
rection; careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady 
in the maintenance of order and discipline; intimate with the Indian 
character, customs, and principles; habituated to the hunting life; 
guarded by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of his 
country against losing time in the description of objects already pos- 
sessed; honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding, and a 
fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would 
- be as certain as if seen by ourselves.” } 


Here is the character of an ideal explorer, who had car- 
ried out with complete success the objects proposed by 
the President and had done much to promote the ‘Mani- 
fest Destiny’ under which succeeding waves of pioneers 
carried American energy with the American flag from sea 
to sea. 

On November 16, 1803, Jefferson wrote to Lewis con- 
cerning the details of the exploration : — 

“The object of your mission is single, the direct water communi- 
cation from sea to sea formed by the bed of the Missouri and perhaps 


1 This is from Jefferson’s Memoir of Meriwether Lewis prefixed to a record 
of the Expedition which was published at Philadelphia in 1814. 


| 397 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


the Oregon; by having Mr. Clark with you we consider the expedi- 
tion as double manned, and therefore the less liable to failure; for 
which reason neither of you should be exposed to risks by going off of 
your line. I have proposed in conversation, and it seems generally 
assented to, that Congress shall appropriate ten or twelve thousand 
dollars for exploring the principal waters of the Mississippi and Mis- 
souri. In that case, I should send a party up the Red River to its head, 
then to cross over to the head of the Arkansas, and come down that. 
A second party for the Pani and Padouca rivers, and a third, perhaps, 
for the Morsigone and St. Peter’s.”’ 


His instructions to Lewis cover several pages and 
abound in surprising details showing Jefferson’s wonderful 
combination of science and practical sagacity. They were 
to find out as much as possible about the Indians — their 
tribes, languages, traditions, monuments, customs, laws, 
the diseases prevalent, and the remedies they used, etc., 
etc.; they were also to examine or notice the soil, climate, 
vegetables, animals, insects, minerals, and geology of the 
country, treating the natives in the most friendly way, 
and telling them of our wish to be neighbourly, friendly, 
and useful to them. “‘Should you reach the Pacific Ocean, 
endeavour to learn if there be any port within your reach 
frequented by the sea vessels of any nation, and to send 
two of your trusted people back by sea, in such way as they 
shall judge practicable, with a copy of your notes.’ 

In May, 1804, the party started from their winter quar- 
ters near the present city of St. Louis to ascend the Mis- 
sourl. On November 7, 1805, after exciting and perilous 
adventures they reached the Pacific Ocean, the first white 
men to cross the Continent. A year later they were back 
at St. Louis, having marched some 8,000 miles. Jefferson 
had the satisfaction of informing the world of their success 
in a special message to Congress of February 19, 1806. 

In all these steps Jefferson was acting wholly on his own 


[ 398 | 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


initiative. It has been said that Gladstone was an oppor- 
tunist with a conscience. Jefferson was a visionary with 
the statesman’s gift for accomplishing what is practicable. 
It is his peculiar glofy that he saw the future greatness of 
his country and took the right measures for securing its 
peaceful development. The “dreamer” and the “phi- 
losopher”’ had studied the geography of his own continent 
to some purpose. The United States of to-day is the legit- 
imate offspring of Jefferson, the peaceful expansionist, 
the enterprising explorer. 

Meanwhile the date of the Presidential election was 
drawing near. There was no doubt of Jefferson’s renom- 
ination, or of his re-election, once he had decided to stand 
for a second time. He had no rival in the affections of the 
people. Peace and prosperity had been reflected in the 
public finances. Henry Adams writes in his history : — 


“Although the customs produced two millions less than in 1802, yet 
when the Secretary in October, 1803, announced his financial arrange- 
ments, which included the purchase money of fifteen million dollars 
for Louisiana, he was able to provide for all his needs without imposing 
a new tax. The treaty required the issue of six per cent bonds for 
$11,250,000, redeemable after fifteen years. These were issued, and to 
_ meet the interest and sinking fund, Gallatin added from his surplus an 
annual appropriation of seven hundred thousand dollars to his general 
fund, so that the discharge of the whole debt would take place within 
the year 1818, instead of eighteen months earlier, as had been intended. 
. . . This was ideal success. On a sudden call, to pay out four million 
dollars in hard money, and add seven hundred thousand dollars to 
annual expenditure, without imposing a tax, was a feat that warranted 
congratulations.” 


The election took place in November. Jefferson and 
Governor Clinton of New York were nominated as Presi- 
dent and Vice-President by the Congressional caucus for 
the Republicans, and the Federalists agreed to vote for 


[ 399 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


C. C. Pinckney and Rufus King. The completeness of 
Jefferson’s victory marks the measure of his success and of 
popular approval. He carried fifteen of the seventeen 
states of the Union, and in the electoral college received 
162 votes against 14 for the Federalist candidates. 

* * * * * * * 


During his four years of office, Jefferson’s private cor- 
respondence is naturally less voluminous and varied than 
usual. There are several long and interesting letters to 
Dr. Priestley, which taken together give a very accurate 
picture of Jefferson’s views on the destiny of the United 
States, both in America and in relation to Europe. Thus 
on June 19, 1802, he writes : — 


“Our people in a body are wise, because they are under the unre- 
strained and unperverted operation of their own understanding. Those 
whom they have assigned to the direction of their affairs have stood 
with a pretty even front. If any one of them was withdrawn, many 
others entirely equal have been ready to fill his place with good abili- 
ties. A nation, composed of such materials, and free in all its members 
from distressing wants, furnishes hopeful implements for the interest- 
ing experiment of self government; and we feel that we are acting 
under obligations not confined to the limits of our own society. It is 
impossible not to be sensible that we are acting for all mankind; that 
circumstances denied to others, but indulged to us, have imposed 
on us the duty of proving what is the degree of freedom and self gov- 
ernment in which a society may venture to leave its individual 
members.” 


On April 9, 1803, he transmitted to Priestley a sketch 
of his religious opinions, and on April 21, he enclosed 
to Dr. Benjamin Rush, a “‘Syllabus of an Estimate of the 
Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus compared with those of 
others” : — 


“In some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings 
of 1798-9,” he writes to Rush, “which served as an anodyne to the 


[ 400 | 


: 
i 


Fae ora 





a . 


Ta 


7 





Jefferson’s First Administration 


afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then labouring, 
the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised 
_you, that one day or other, I would give you my views of it. They are 
the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that 
anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of 
my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, op- 
posed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. J am a Chris- 
tian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely 
attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to him 
every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other. 
At the short interval since these conversations, when I could justi- 
fiably abstract my mind from public affairs, the subject has been under 
my contemplation. But the more I considered it, the more it expanded 
beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment 
of my late departure from Monticello I received from Dr. Priestley his 
little treatise of “Socrates and Jesus compared.’ This being a section 
of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of re- 
flection while on the road, and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, 
to arrange in my mind a syllabus, or outline of such an estimate of the 
comparative merits of Christianity, as I wished to see executed by some 
one with more leisure and information for the task than myself. This 
I now send you, as the only discharge of my promise I can probably 
ever execute.” 


There are also several letters about the Indians, in whose 
present and future welfare Jefferson always took deep in- 
terest. To Colonel Benjamin Hawkins, who had been 
appointed to transact some business with them, he writes 
February 18, 1803: — 


“T consider the business of hunting as already become insufficient 
to furnish clothing and subsistence to the Indians. The promotion of 
agriculture, therefore, and household manufacture, are essential in 
their preservation, and I am disposed to aid and encourage it liberally. 
This will enable them to live on much smaller portions of land, and, 
indeed, will render their vast forests useless but for the range of cattle; 
for which purpose, also, as they become better farmers, they will be 
found useless, and even disadvantageous. While they are learning to 
do better on less land, our increasing numbers will be calling for more 


[ 401 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


land, and thus a coincidence of interests will be produced between 
those who have lands to spare, and want other necessaries, and those 
who have such necessaries to spare, and want lands. This commerce, 
then, will be for the good of both, and those who are friends to both 
ought to encourage it. ... 

“Tn truth the ultimate point of rest and happiness for them is to let 
our settlements and theirs meet and blend together, to intermix, and 
become one people, incorporating themselves with us as citizens of the 
United States. This is what the natural progress of things will, of 
course, bring on, and it will be better to promote than to retard it.” 


In April, 1804, Jefferson lost the younger of his two 
daughters, Maria Eppes, who died at Monticello. To 
a letter of sympathy from John Page he replied: — 


“Your letter, my dear friend, is a new proof of the goodness of your 
heart, and the part you take in my loss marks an affectionate concern 
for the greatness of it. It is great indeed. Others may lose of their 
abundance, but I, of my want, have lost even the half of all I had. 
My evening prospects now hang on the slender thread of a single life.” 


Another letter came from Mrs. John Adams with whom 
Maria had stayed asagirl. This led to a correspondence 
on the differences which had estranged them, and paved 
the way for a complete reconciliation between Quincy and 
Monticello. 


On July 18, 1804, he writes to his friend Philip Mazzei 
— expounding briefly his theory of treaties : — 


“On the subject of treaties, our system is to have none with any 
nation, as far as can be avoided. The treaty with England has there- 
fore not been renewed, and all overtures for treaty with other nations 
have been declined. We believe, that with nations as with individuals, 
dealings may be carried on as advantageously, perhaps more so, while 
their continuance depends on voluntary good treatment, as if fixed 
by a contract, which, when it becomes injurious to either, is made, 
by forced constructions, to mean what suits them, and becomes a cause 
of war instead of a bond of peace.” 


[ 402 ] 


Jefferson’s First Administration 


He adds that the purchase of Louisiana has “enabled us 
to do a handsome thing for Fayette. He had received a 
grant of between eleven and twelve thousand acres north 
of Ohio, worth, perhaps, a dollar an acre. We have ob- 
tained permission of Congress to locate it in Louisiana. 
Locations can be found adjacent to the city of New Or- 
leans, in the island of New Orleans and in its vicinity, the 
value of which cannot be calculated. I hope it will induce 
him to come over and settle there with his family.” It 
seems that when Louisiana was acquired Jefferson at first 
wished to appoint Lafayette as governor. But there were 
too many difficulties in the way. 

At Washington during his Presidency Jefferson en- 
joyed excellent health. He rode usually from one to three 
in the afternoon, when he was often to be met galloping 
along the roads that led out of Washington. For the four 
fine bays which drew his coach he paid sixteen hundred 
dollars; but he seldom used it. On his journeys to and 
from Monticello he drove in a phaeton, or in a one-horse 
chaise of his own device and construction. 

At the close of his first administration, as Tucker re- 
marks, Jefferson’s popularity was “at its meridian.’ Un- 
exampled quiet reigned over the United States. The fear 
of being again entangled in the European war had passed. 
Party spirit seemed to be evaporating. The Federalists 
showed few signs of life, save in “harmless jibes at Jef- 
ferson’s philosophy, or the impotent vituperations of a 
few Federal prints, of which one after another died a 
natural death for want of the aliment which first called 
them into existence.’ One of the best jokes against the 
President came from a digest of information about Louisi- 
ana, communicated to Congress, which stated on the au- 
thority of traders that a thousand miles up the Missouri 


[ 403 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


was a salt mountain eighty miles long and forty wide com- 
posed of solid rock salt without a tree or even a shrub upon 
it. This fable, and the probability of mammoths being 
found walking about the new territory — at which the 
President had hinted in his notes — gave a good deal of 
amusement; and the credulity of a natural philosopher 
became a favorite topic with critics who were otherwise 
gravelled for lack of matter. 


[ 404 | 


CHAPTER II 


JEFFERSON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION — 1805-1809 


Litusque rogamus 
Innocuum, et cunctis undamque auramque patentem. 
— VIRGIL 


‘We implore 
Free air, free ocean and a harmless shore.’ 
— SELDEN 


N March 4, 1805, Jefferson stood a second time 
to take the oath of office as President of the 
United States. He was then in his sixty-second 

year, having just completed a term of peaceful and pros- 
perous achievements unparalleled before or since in 
American history. He had acquired the most valuable 
territory ever added by treaty to the Union; and yet at 
the same time, with the surpluses produced by thrifty 
finance, he had abolished all internal taxes, and had pro- 
vided for a rapid extinction of the debt; he had main- 
tained neutrality with success, and had brought a great 
majority of the nation to support his policy. 

His second Inaugural Address, less ornate than the 
first, reviewed what had been done. In the transaction 
of foreign affairs they had cultivated the friendship of all 
nations, cherishing mutual interests and intercourse on 
fair and equal terms: ‘‘We are firmly convinced, and 
we act on that conviction, that with nations, as with in- 

dividuals, our interests, soundly calculated, will ever be 


[ 405 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


found inseparable from our moral duties.” At home they 
had effected steady reductions of the public debt, and he 
looked forward to the day when, redemption being f- 
nally effected, ‘‘the revenue thereby liberated may, by a 
just repartition among the states, and a corresponding 
amendment to the constitution, be applied, in time of 
peace,” to internal improvements, while in time of war it 
would enable the country to meet within the year all its 
expenses, without encroaching on the rights of future 
generations by burdening them with the debts of the past. 
War would then be but a suspension of useful works, and 
the return to a state of peace would be a return to the 
progress of improvement. 

In spite of newspaper calumnies he did not repent of 
the freedom of the press. It was not, he wrote, “unin- 
teresting to the world, that an experiment should be fairly 
and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided 
by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protec- 
tion of truth — whether a government, conducting itself 
in: the true spirit of the constitution, with zeal and purity, 
and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole 
world should witness, can be written down by falsehood 
and defamation.” The results, he thought, had amply 
justified their confidence. The verdict of the country was 
“honourable to those who had served them, and con- 
solatory to the friend of man, who believes he may be 
trusted with his own affairs.”’ 

Of the future he had written with cheerful confidence 
to a friend soon after his re-election : — 


“The new century opened itself by committing us on a boisterous 
ocean; but all is now subsiding; peace is smoothing our path at home 
and abroad; and if we are not wanting in the practice of justice and 
moderation, our tranquillity and prosperity may be preserved until 


[ 406 | 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


increasing numbers shall leave us nothing to fear from abroad... . 
Should we be able to preserve this state of public happiness, and to 
see our citizens, whom we found so divided, rally to their genuine prin- 
ciples, I shall hope yet to enjoy the comfort of that general good will 
which has been so unfeelingly wrested from me, and to sing at the end 
of my term the Nunc dimittis Domine, with a satisfaction leaving noth- 
ing to desire but the last great audit.” 


But clouds were already blowing up to darken these fair 
prospects. Dissensions arose in the republican camp. 
Only two months after his second Inauguration the Presi- 
dent remarked with infinite pain on local schisms, which 
had divided the republican party in Pennsylvania and 
New York. “The main body of both sections mean well,” 
he wrote, “but their good intentions will produce great 
public evil.”” A minority would end in coalition with the 
Federalists and some compromise of principle; but the 
administration would pursue its course steadily, knowing 
nothing of these ‘family dissensions.’ 

Among the dissidents the most dangerous was John 
Randolph of Roanoke, touchy, ambitious, resentful, elo- 
quent, and eccentric. Chosen to manage an impeach- 
ment, before the Senate, of Samuel Chase, a Justice of the 
Supreme Court, for expressing party opinions from the 
Bench, Randolph had bungled the case badly. When 
the impeachment failed,! he blamed Jefferson for a failure 
which was all his own, and recognising that he had lost 
his chance of the Presidential nomination Randolph set 
himself with a few Republican malcontents to embarrass 
the administration. 

These rifts in the republican lute might not have mat- 

1 The acquittal was pronounced on March 1, 1805, by Aaron Burr, who had 
returned from hiding after his duel (July 11, 1804) with Hamilton, and was 


still Vice President, though he was about to be succeeded in that office by 
Clinton. 


[ 407 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


tered much but for the situation which was developing 
abroad. Jefferson had begun his first administration in a 
world at peace. He began his second in a world at war. 
In this “battle of the lions and tigers,” as Jefferson called 
it — perhaps “‘sharks and tigers’’ would have been nearer 
the mark — the feelings and rights of neutrals counted 
for little or nothing. For a time, however, relations with 
England remained friendly; and when Fox succeeded 
Pitt, in January, 1806, Jefferson’s hopes of a good under- 
standing with the British Government rose high.) But 
they were soon to be dashed to the ground by Fox’s un- 
timely death. 

In Jefferson’s second administration the place of Lin- 
coln, the Attorney-General, who resigned, was filled after 
some delay by John Breckenridge of Kentucky. Madison 
and Gallatin were still the mainstays of a Cabinet, 
whose first task was to settle if possible the boundaries of 
the Louisiana purchase. Spain had protested against the 
transfer of the territory to the United States, and steadily 
refused to admit that she had sold any part of Florida. 
On this point, after protracted discussions, Talleyrand had 
written to General Armstrong, the American Minister in 
Paris, on December 21, 1804, that Florida was not in the 
cession. Meanwhile Monroe, who had been sent to Ma- 
drid, pressed in vain for a settlement. The Spanish Gov- 
ernment put him off from month to month, professing 
perfect indifference as to whether the result was peace or 
war. Finally in the middle of May, 1805, Monroe de- 
manded his passports and returned to London in disgust, 
having accomplished nothing. To overcome Spanish ob- 
stinacy and secure Florida Jefferson now began to con- 


1“An English ascendancy on the ocean,” so he wrote to Monroe on May 4, 
1806, “‘is safer for us than that of France.” 


[ 408 ] 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


template an alliance with England, and wrote to Madison 
(Monticello, August 27, 1805) : — 


“Whatever ill humour may at times have been expressed against us by 
individuals of that country, the first wish of every Englishman’s heart 
is to see us once more fighting by their sides against France; nor could 
the King or his Ministers do an act so popular as to enter into an 
alliance with us. The nation would not weigh the consideration by 
grains and scruples. They would consider it as the price and pledge of 
an indissoluble friendship.” 


In return for such advantages England might guarantee 
Louisiana and the Floridas. His idea was a provisional 
treaty “to come into force on the event of our being en- 
gaged in war with either France or Spain during the pres- 
ent war in Europe.” Besides, “it being generally known 
to France and Spain that we had entered into a treaty 
with England, would probably ensure us a peaceful and 
immediate settlement of both points.”’ 

The idea of an alliance with England was dropped for 
the time being. Madison was against it, and Gallatin 
thought that the United States had made pretensions 
which she was not strong enough to maintain. But Jef- 
ferson nearly gained his object. After further negotia- 
tions in Paris it was agreed that Spain should deliver up 
the Floridas in return for a payment of five million dol- 
lars. Unfortunately events which Jefferson could not 
have foreseen, and was powerless to prevent or control, 
upset his calculations. 

Congress was to meet in December, 1805, to find the 
money and ratify the Florida arrangement. But while 
Monroe was absent in Madrid, the British parliament 
had passed a series of measures against neutral trade with 
the French and Spanish colonies; and by Sir William 
Scott’s prize court decision in the Essex case (July, 1805) 


[ 409 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


American ships were practically deprived of any share in 
that trade. As a result scores of American ships were 
seized without warning and declared lawful prize. Mon- 
roe remonstrated with the British authorities, but in vain. 
At last he wrote to Madison that the government ought to 
take strong measures against Spain, trance: and England. 
simultaneously ! 

After much discussion in the Cabinet it had been de- 
cided to send two messages to Congress, one public, the 
other secret, in order to carry out a suggestion from Tal- 
leyrand that they should alarm Spain “by a vigorous 
language and conduct,” and at the same time procure from 
Congress the money needed to negotiate for Florida. The 
opening paragraph of Jefferson’s public message (Decem- 
ber 3, 1805) showed how much the atmosphere had 
changed for the worse since March. The commotions in 
Europe had begun to threaten the peace and security of 
America : — 


“Our coasts have been infested and our harbours watched by private 
armed vessels, some of them without commissions, some with illegal 
commissions, others with those of legal form but committing piratical 
acts beyond the authority of their commissions. They have captured 
in the very entrance of our harbours, as well as on the high seas, not 
only the vessels of our friends coming to trade with us, but our own 
also. They have carried them off under pretence of legal adjudication, 
but not daring to approach a court of justice they have plundered and 
sunk them by the way, or in obscure places where no evidence could 
arise against them; maltreated the crews, and abandoned them in 
boats in the open sea or on desert shores without food or covering. 
These enormities appearing to be unreached by any control of their 
sovereigns, I have found it necessary to equip a force to cruise within 
our own seas, to arrest all vessels of these descriptions found hovering 
on our coast within the limits of the Gulf Stream, and to bring the of- 
fenders in for trial as pirates. The same system of hovering on our 
coast and harbours under colour of seeking enemies has been also carried 


[ 410 ] 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


on by public armed ships, to the great annoyance and oppression of 
our commerce.” 


New principles,,.too, had been “‘interloped into the law 
of nations, founded neither in justice nor the usage or ac- 
knowledgement of nations.” According to these a bellig- 
erent took to himself a commerce with his own enemy 
which he denied to a neutral, on the ground of its aiding 
that enemy in the war. This of course referred to the 
Essex case decision, and to the presence of a British block- 
ading squadron outside New York harbour. 

Turning to the question of Florida he said that all at- 
tempts to negotiate had been unsuccessful. The United 
States had avoided changing the state of things by taking 
new posts in the disputed territories, but Spain had re- 
cently made inroads on American territory, and had 
seized and plundered American citizens, and troops had 
had to be ordered to the frontier. “‘Some of these injuries 
may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where that is 
competent it is always the most desirable. But some of 
them are of a nature to be met by force only, and all of 
them may lead to it.”” The President therefore recom- 
mended “‘such preparations as circumstances call for.” 

This message was interpreted by many as a prelude to 
war. Insurance rates went up immediately, and private 
vessels began to arm. The Federalist newspapers ap- 
plauded the President’s warlike tone, and Congress waited 
anxiously for the secret message. On December 6 they 
met behind closed doors to receive a communication 
much less alarming than they had been led to expect. 
It was ‘‘a Confidential Message on Spanish Spolia- 
tions,” reviewing recent diplomacy and the attitude 
of France, which had been the deciding factor through- 
out : — 


[411 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


“We have reason to believe that she was disposed to effect a 
settlement on a plan analogous to what our ministers had proposed, 
and so comprehensive as to remove as far as possible the grounds of 
future collision and controversy on the Eastern as well as Western side 
of the Mississippi. The present crisis in Europe is favourable for 
pressing such a settlement, and not a moment should be lost in availing 
ourselves of it. Should it pass unimproved, our situation would be- 
come much more difficult. Formal war is not necessary. It is not 
probable it will follow. But the protection of our citizens, the spirit 
and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a 
certain degree. It will probably contribute to advance the object of 
peace.” 


Nothing was said in the message itself about a vote of 
money; but Randolph as Chairman of the Committee on 
Ways and Means was expected to move that five million 
dollars be appropriated for the purchase of Florida. In- 
stead of so doing he turned sharply against the Adminis- 
tration. Though he had supported the Louisiana pur- 
chase, he condemned this as ‘“‘a mean attempt to bribe 
one nation to join in robbing another,” and told the Presi- 
dent he would never consent to vote the money, partly 
because it had not been asked for in the message, and 
partly because such a transaction was a “‘disgrace.”’ For 
over a month he held the majority at bay. The Cabinet 
could do nothing, though every day’s delay prejudiced 
the success of their plan. Not until January 14 was the 
money finally voted by the House; and when Madison 
was able to authorise his representative in Paris to offer 
five million dollars for Florida and Texas up to the Col- 
orado, it was too late. Either Talleyrand had acted with- 
out authority, or Napoleon had changed his mind. The 
negotiations dragged on for a few months, and then 
petered out. 

Next came the question of British depredations on 


[ 412 | 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


American commerce. The President sent in the petitions 
and other papers relating to the seizures of American mer- 
chant vessels without comment. They were referred to a 
Committee of the Senate which declared them an “‘en- 
croachment on national independence,” and recommended 
that a list of imports from Britain should be prohibited, 
in retaliation. In the House two resolutions were intro- 
duced, one for an embargo on all British products, and 
another for a restricted but still extensive list of prohibi- 
tions. Randolph opposed all retaliatory measures on the 
ground that war was not for a moment to be thought of, 
and argued that the best policy was submission to the 
British decrees. This public rebellion of a party leader for 
a time disorganised the House. Nothing quite like it had 
been seen before in American politics. Randolph dragged 
the Spanish negotiations into the light, assailed every 
member of the Cabinet, and tried to sow distrust between 
the President and his friends. For two months confusion 
reigned. At last, however, his own extravagance and bit- 
terness lost him the support of nearly all who had fol- 
lowed him over the Florida bill, and he was left with only 
half a dozen supporters. The rebellion had failed. Jef- 
ferson’s authority was again supreme, but Randolph had 
stopped the Florida project, and had provided foreign 
ministers in Washington with diplomatic material against 
the President. 

In April Jefferson wrote to Wilson C. Nicholas urging 
him to return to the Senate, where a minority of Federal- 
ists skillfully led was causing a good deal of embarrassment. 
Then he went on to describe the situation in the lower 
House : — 


“The House of Representatives is as well disposed as I ever saw one. 
The defection of so prominent a leader threw them into dismay and con- 


[ 413 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


fusion for amoment; but they soon rallied to their own principles, and 
let him go off with five or six followers only. One half of these 
are from Virginia. His late declaration of perpetual opposition to this 
administration drew off a few others, who at first had joined him, sup- 
posing his opposition occasional only, and not systematic. The alarm 
the House has had from this schism has produced a rallying together 
and a harmony, which carelessness and security had begun to endanger. 
On the whole, this little trial of the firmness of our representatives in 
their principles . . . has added much to my confidence in the stability 
of our government.” 


On March 25, the House had adopted a non-impor- 
tation bill against England to go into operation in Novem- 
ber; and the President, in response to the Senate’s re- 
quest, sent William Pinckney to London to act with Mon- 
roe in fresh negotiations with England. On April 22, 
what has been described as the stormiest session ever wit- 
nessed in Congress closed, and John Randolph went home, 
to assail the administration under the pseudonym of 
‘“Decius’ in the Richmond Enquirer. Jefferson met these 
attempts to create dissension in the party with admirable 
tact and temper. He was always ready to make friendly 
advances to those who had differed from him. When a 
set was made against Gallatin, the President wrote to 
his colleague : — 

“The machinations of the last session, to put you at cross questions 
with us all, were so obvious as to be seen at the very first glance of every 
eye. . . . I observe in the papers lately, new attempts to revive this 
stale artifice, and that they squint more directly towards you and my- 
self. I cannot, therefore, be satisfied, till I declare to you explicitly, 
that my affections and confidence in you are nothing impaired, and 
that they cannot be impaired by means so unworthy the notice of can- 
did and honorable minds. I make the declaration that no doubts or 
jealousies, which often beget the facts they fear, may find a moment’s 
harbour in either of our minds. I have so much reliance on the superior 


good sense and candor of all those associated with me, as to be satisfied 
they will not suffer either friend or foe to sow tares among us.” 


[ 414 ] 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


The summer passed more or less peacefully, though 
disturbing rumours began to circulate about Aaron Burr 
who was plotting mischief on the Western frontier. These 
Jefferson chose to ignore. He had indeed more important 
matters in hand, and was not anxious to revive antago- 
nism by anything that might be construed as harshness 
towards Burr. 

On the Continent Armstrong was waiting the French 
pleasure in the matter of Florida, and in England Monroe 
was trying to negotiate a treaty which should accommo- 
date the interests of American commerce to the claims 
of the British navy, especially in regard to impressment, 
no easy matter. The death of Pitt, however, and the 
formation of a new ministry, with Charles James Fox as 
Foreign Secretary, seemed to augur well for its success. 
On May ath, 1806, Jefferson wrote to Monroe: — 


“The late change in the ministry I consider as insuring us a just 
settlement of our differences, and we ask no more. In Mr. Fox, per- 
sonally, I have more confidence than in any man in England, and it is 
founded in what, through unquestionable channels, I have had oppor- 
tunities of knowing of his honesty and his good sense. While he shall 
be in the administration, my reliance on that government will be solid. 
. . . No two countries upon earth have so many points of common 
interest and friendship; and their rulers must be great bunglers in- 
deed, if, with such dispositions, they break them asunder. The only 
rivalry that can arise is on the ocean. England may, by petty larceny 
thwartings, check us on that element a little, but nothing she can do 
will retard us there one year’s growth.” 


Unfortunately, a fortnight after Pinckney’s arrival in 
London Fox died. From this moment reactionary views 
began again to prevail in England. It was decided that 
the friendship and commerce of neutrals should be sacri- 
ficed to sea power and prize money. 

So far, there had been no interruption to the growing 


[415 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


prosperity of the Union. Twenty-four millions of debt 
had been paid off, and the Treasury had a substantial 
surplus. The people as a whole were contented, and were 
solidly behind the President in his desire to avoid war. 
Jefferson’s Sixth Annual Message (Dec. 2, 1806) was de- 
signed to strengthen this temper, and to present a domestic 
policy on which Republican and Federalist could unite. 

After reviewing foreign affairs in a hopeful tone, with 
no hint of the menace conveyed in his last message, he 
turned to home affairs. At last an opportunity had come 
for putting an end to the importation of slaves : — 

“T congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the approach of the period at 
which you may interpose your authority constitutionally to withdraw 
the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those 
viclations of human rights which have been so long continued on the 
unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the repu- 
tation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to 
proscribe. Although no law you may pass can take prohibitory effect 
till the first day of the year 1808, yet the intervening period isnot too 
long to prevent, by timely notice, expeditions which cannot be com- 
pleted before that day.” 

He then announced that the extinction of the national 
debt was in sight. In a year or two a surplus would begin 
to accumulate in the Treasury. What should they do with 
the money thus released? He thought that the proceeds 
of duties on the luxuries of the rich should be applied to 
public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other 
objects of public improvement as it might be thought 
proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of fed- 
eral powers. “‘By these operations new channels of com- 
munication will be opened between the States; the lines of 
separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, 
and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.” 

He suggested that Congress should found and endow, 


[ 416 ] 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


either with money or lands, a national university. “‘A 
public institution can alone supply those sciences which, 
though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete 
the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the im- 
provement of the country, and some of them to its pres- 
ervation.” 

Finally he advised Congress of the perilous situation in 
Europe and of the delicate relations in which the United 
States stood to the belligerent powers : — 


“Our duty is, therefore, to act upon things as they are, and to make 
a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were armies to be 
raised whenever a speck of war is visible on our horizon, we never 
should have been without them. Our resources would have been 
exhausted on dangers which have never happened, instead of being 
reserved for what is really to take place.” 


“Nowhere in all the long course of Mr. Jefferson’s great 
career,” says Henry Adams, “did he appear to better ad- 
vantage than when in his message of 1806, he held out to 
the country and the world that view of his ultimate hopes 
and aspirations for national development, which was, as 
he then trusted, to be his last bequest to mankind” : — 


“Had Congress been able or willing to follow promptly his advice, 
many difficulties would have been overcome before the year 1810, 
which seemed twenty years later to bar the path of national progress. 
Congress indeed, never succeeded in rising to the level of Jefferson’s 
hopes and wishes; it realised but a small part of the plan which he 
traced, and what it did was done with little system.” 


The paragraph in the Message relating to the Slave 
Trade was immediately referred to a special Committee, 
which in mid-December reported a Bill declaring the im- 
portation of negro slaves unlawful. It imposed a fine on 
the importer, with forfeiture of ship and cargo, and au- 

thorised the President to employ armed vessels in enforc- 


[ 417] 


Thomas Jefferson 


ing the law. This measure, long and fiercely contested, 
widened the breach between southern republicans and 
northern democrats. It was during these debates that 
John Randolph predicted that the future dividing line 
in American politics would be not between Federalism 
and Republicanism but between slavery and anti-slavery. 
The Bill passed by a small majority and was approved by 
the President on March 2nd, 1807, more than thirty 
years after his denunciation of this infamous traffic was 
struck out of the Declaration of Independence. Mean- 
while Jefferson and Gallatin had worked out an ambitious 
scheme of internal improvements, to be defrayed from the 
large surpluses which now seemed assured. Their proj- 
ects embraced a great system of canals and roads linking 
east to west. Jefferson realised that quick and easy com- 
munication between the different parts of the country 
would knit the nation together and prevent the separa- 
tion which many feared. Congress voted money for some 
of these projects, and a number of surveys were made. 
But before the end of 1807 their attention was diverted 
from their own land to the troubles of the ocean and the 
outrages of European belligerents on the rights and com- 
merce of neutrals. | 

On the last day of the Session (March, 1807) a messen- 
ger arrived with the treaty, which Monroe and Pinckney 
had negotiated, but only by disregarding their instruc- 
tions. It was so adverse to American interests that Jef- 
ferson refused even to submit it to the Senate. He would 
have preferred himself to let further negotiations for a 
treaty drop, and to “back out ... as well as we can, 
letting it die away insensibly.”’ Madison, however, was 
anxious for a further attempt, and fresh instructions were 
sent to London, much to the disgust of Monroe, who 


[ 418 | 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


wanted to return home in the hope of securing the repub- 
lican nomination for the Presidency. 

The trial of Aaron Burr on a charge of high treason ab- 
sorbed public interest during the spring and early sum- 
mer. For a year and a half, as we have seen, Jefferson re- 
fused to pay much attention to the rumours of Burr’s 
activities in the West; but in November, 1806, he issued 
a proclamation for his arrest on a charge of conspiring 
against Spain. What Burr really intended has never been 
made quite clear. He was a shifty conspirator of the 
Catilinarian type, and his plans changed almost from hour 
to hour. At a later date, when all the known facts were 
before him, Jefferson described Burr’s enterprise as “‘the 
most extraordinary since the days of Don Quixote,” and 
“so extravagant that those who know his understanding, 
would not believe it, if the proofs admitted doubt. He 
has meant to place himself on the throne of Montezuma, 
and extend his empire to the Alleghany, seizing on New 
Orleans as the instrument of compulsion for our western 
states.’ But Burr had overestimated the discontent 
in the West, and Jefferson declared in another letter 
“that not a single native Creole of Louisiana, and but one 
American, settled there before the delivery of the country 
to us, were in his interest. His partisans were made up of 
fugitives from justice, or from their debts, who had flocked 
there from other parts of the United States, . . . and of 
adventurers and speculators.”’ 

In March, 1807, Burr was brought to Richmond for 
trial. Unfortunately for the government Chief Justice 
John Marshall, Jefferson’s inveterate adversary, pre- 


1In a letter of July 14, 1807, Jefferson states clearly that Burr’s plot was to 
separate the Western States and join them to Mexico, placing himself at the head 
of this new empire. 


[ 419 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


sided over the court, having previously attended a private 
dinner given in Burr’s honour at Richmond. The de- 
fence soon resolved itself into an attack on the President, 
and Marshall summoned Jefferson to appear in Court 
at the demand of Burr’s attorney, holding that a subpoena 
could be enforced against the President. Jefferson very 
properly refused to attend. It is a singular case of the 
President overruling the Chief Justice on a question of 
mixed law and administration. Compliance would have 
put the executive at the mercy of the judiciary. Jefferson 
felt that Marshall and the Federalists were patronising a 
plotter against the Republic solely in order to embarrass 
and discredit a republican administration. His letter 
of June 20, 1807, to George Hay, who led the prosecu- 
tion of Burr for the Government, puts the true view of 
subpoenas with admirable force : — 


“Let us apply the Judge’s own doctrine to the case of himself and 
his brethren. The Sheriff of Henrico summons him from the bench to 
quell a riot somewhere in his county. The Federal judge is by the gen- 
eral law a part of the posse of the State sheriff. Would the judge aban- 
don major duties to perform lesser ones? Again the court of Orleans 
or Maine commands by subpoenas the attendance of all the judges of 
the Supreme Court. Would they abandon their posts as judges and 
the interests of millions committed to them to serve the purposes of a 
single individual? The leading principle of our constitution is the in- 
dependence of the legislature, executive, and judiciary of each other; 
and none are more jealous of this than the judiciary. But would the 
executive be independent of the judiciary if he were subject to the 
commands of the latter and to imprisonment for disobedience; if the 
several courts could bandy him from pillar to post, keep him con- 
stantly trudging from north to south, and east to west, and withdraw 
him entirely from his constitutional duties ?”’ 


1 George Tucker, who was present at the dinner, says that Marshall regretted 
this impropriety. 


[ 420 ] 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


Marshall’s frivolous remark: “it is apparent that the 
president’s duties as Chief Magistrate do not demand his 
whole time, and are not unremitting” was rightly re- 
sented by Jefferson, who, in this matter at any rate, with 
general approval, supported the dignity of the Chief 
Magistrate and “the intention of the Constitution that 
each branch should be independent of the others,” against 
the impertinence of the Chief Justice. In the end Burr was 
discharged, treason not being proven.! Committed for 
trial in Ohio on a minor charge, he gave bail for 3,000 
dollars but forfeited his recognizances and fled to Eng- 
land. After a life of suffering and disappointment there 
and on the Continent this strange and sinister figure re- 
turned to New York, where he was allowed to practise 
law in obscurity until his death in 1836. 

On June 22, an event took place which threw the 
trial of Burr into the shade. The British frigate Leopard 
stopped the American frigate Chesapeake outside Hamp- 
ton Roads, and demanded the surrender of certain 
deserters believed to be on board. The commander of the 
Chesapeake refused to allow his crew to be examined. 
The Leopard thereupon fired three broadsides, killing and 
wounding several men, boarded the ship, and seized four 
seamen, one of whom proved to be a deserter from the 
British Navy. 

An outburst of indignation followed when details of 
this affair became known. “Never since the battle of 
Lexington,” wrote Jefferson, “have I seen this country 
in such a state of exasperation as at present; and even 
that did not produce such unanimity. The Federalists 


1 The verdict of the Jury was curiously worded: — “We of the Jury say that 
Aaron Burr is not proved to be guilty under this indictment by any evidence 
_ submitted to us.” 


[ 421 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


themselves coalesce with us as to the object, though they 
will return to their trade of censuring every measure taken 
to obtain it. ‘Reparation for the past, and security for 
the future’ is our motto; but whether they will yield it 
freely, or will require resort to non-intercourse, or to war 
is yet to be seen.” The President at once summoned his 
Cabinet to Washington, and on July 2 a proclamation 
was issued ordering all armed vessels of Great Britain out 
of American waters, and prohibiting the issuing of sup- 
plies to them. The frigate Revenge was despatched to Eng- 
land to demand a disavowal of the act. Until it was known 
whether or no the attack was officially authorised, nothing 
could be done except to prepare for war. Gallatin drew up 
a report showing what was needed and the amount of 
money in the Treasury for the purpose, and recommended 
the calling of Congress; but Jefferson, who knew that 
popular passion is the worst of all advisers, preferred to 
wait. 

A letter to W. H. Cabell, then Governor of Virginia, 
June 29, 1807, immediately after the arrival of an officer 
of the Chesapeake with details of the affair, shows that 
from the very first Jefferson took the ground that the 
executive ought not to commit Congress. In the mean- 
time it could exercise its powers to prevent future insults 
in American harbours and claim satisfaction for the past: 


“This will leave Congress free to decide whether war is the most ef- 
ficacious mode of redress in our case, or whether, having taught so many 
other useful lessons to Europe we may not add that of showing them that 
there are peaceable means of repressing injustice by making it the inter- 
est of the aggressor to do what is just and abstain from future wrong.” 


If a period ever arrives when the civilized nations of 
the world are in reality as well as in form representative 
democracies, their governments will be composed of 


[ 422 | 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


statesmen who, like Jefferson, recognize that questions of 
war and peace must be decided by parliament and Con- 
gress, and that it is the duty of the government as trustees 
of the lives and fortunes of the citizens to do nothing 
which can possibly precipitate war or prejudice the full 
freedom of the representative assembly to which the de- 
cision is entrusted. When that day arrives—the day 
hopefully anticipated by Immanuel Kant in his essay 
on Perpetual Peace —a real obstacle will have been 
erected across the path by which nations in modern times 
have so often been led like sheep to the slaughter. Jef- 
ferson’s self-restraint in refraining from warlike action 
at this moment and his successful recommendation of the 
embargo policy will constitute — in the eyes of those who 
accept the Sermon on the Mount as applicable to the 
moral conduct of nations — a shining example of Chris- 
tian and democratic statesmanship. His letters in the 
following weeks and months testify to the practical ability 
and resourcefulness of his mind in this the most trying 
emergency of his life. At the height of the excitement 
(July 9, 1807) the President reminded his friends and 
supporters that law as well as prudence demanded delay. 
“Both reason and the usage of nations required we should 
give Great Britain an opportunity of disavowing and re- 
pairing the insult of their officers. It gives us at the same 
time an opportunity of getting home our vessels, our 
property, and our seamen.” When they had heard from 
London it would be time to summon Congress. Excite- 
ment would then have cooled. Whatever happened, the 
nation’s representatives must not act in the dark. At 
the same time he urged Monroe to make use of the oppor- 
tunity to demand the cessation of impressments. But 
Canning, who had joined the Duke of Portland’s Adminis- 


[ 423 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


tration as Foreign Secretary, refused to negotiate further 
over the American Treaty. He did indeed disavow the 
attack on the Chesapeake, but at the same time he issued 
a proclamation commanding naval officers to seize British 
deserters on foreign ships wherever they might be found, 
and warning British-born residents of other countries that 
naturalization would not relieve British subjects of their 
duties. In the face of this Monroe could do no more, and 
on November 14, he sailed from Plymouth. On that same 
day the British Orders in Council were published in 
London. 

It will be convenient to reserve for another chapter 
Jefferson’s attitude to the naval aggressions of Great 
Britain. But before passing to this last and most des- 
perate problem of his Administration let us glance for a 
moment at his personal correspondence. 

Thomas Paine, who had visited him at Monticello, 
wrote in the spring of 1805 to tell the President that he 
had taken a farm and was building. Jefferson may have 
been glad that this rather embarrassing supporter had 
turned to agricultural pursuits. At any rate there is a 
letter of June 5, 1805, congratulating Paine on this re- 
tirement. Paine, who was something of an architect and 
engineer,! had built an open room on the second story of 
his house. Jefferson much doubts whether it will answer 
expectations : — 


“There will be a few days in the year in which it will be delightful, 
but not many. Nothing but trees or Venetian blinds can protect it from 
the sun. The semi-cylindrical roof you propose will have advantages. 
You know it has been practised on the Cloth Market at Paris. De 


1 In the autumn of 1807 he sent the President a model of a gun boat. “It has 
all the simplicity and ingenuity,” wrote Jefferson, “which generally mark your 
inventions.” 


[ 424 ] 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


Lorme, the inventor, shows many forms of roofs in his book to which 
it is applicable. I have used it at home for a dome, being 120 degrees 
of an oblong octagon, and in the capitol we unite two quadrants of a 
sphere by a semi cylinder; all framed in De Lorme’s manner.” 


In the busiest moments of his Presidency Jefferson could 
not resist a problem of architecture. 

In these years Russia under the Czar Alexander was the 
chief European support of neutral rights. Alexander sent 
his bust to Jefferson. Jefferson replied with a present of 
books on the Constitution of the United States, and with 
a friendly letter urging the Czar at “the approaching paci- 
fication to incorporate into the treaty a correct definition 
of the rights of neutrals on the high seas.” 

We have seen how little store Jefferson set by clerks and 
secretaries. As he was in the habit of thinking for himself 
and writing his own letters, he was not fond of committing 
his confidential thoughts to third parties. This explains 
his delight in the polygraph, which he thought, “‘the finest 
invention of the present age, and so much superior to the 
copying machine that the latter will never be continued 
a day by anyone who tries the polygraph.” In presenting 
one to a friend he remarked: “‘As a secretary, which 
copies for us what we write without the power of revealing 
it, I find it a most precious possession for a man in public 
business.”” Though he no longer had time for inventions 
of his own, Jefferson was much pleased to receive in May, 
1807, the gold medal of the Society of Agriculture at Paris 
for his improved plough, together with the title of Foreign 
Associate. 

Most of his correspondence from 1806 to his retirement 
from the presidency is taken up with Burr’s conspiracy, 
the British attack on the Chesapeake, the Orders in Coun- 
cil, Napoleon’s edicts, and the embargo. Peace for him- 


[ 425 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


self and peace for his country were more and more in his 
thoughts. To his “dear and ancient friend” Count Deo- 
dati, who had found a quiet and safe retreat, he wrote, 
March .29, 1807:°. Were. I in) Europe’ paxeri pani 
would certainly be my motto. Wars and contentions 
indeed fill the pages of history with more matter; but 
more blessed is that nation whose silent course of happi- 
ness furnishes nothing for history to say. This is what I 
ambition for my own country, and what it has for- 
tunately enjoyed for now upwards of twenty years, while 
Europe has been in constant volcanic eruption.”’ Having 
himself now performed his forty years service — “my 
-quadragena stipendia’”’ — he was entitled to discharge. 
“T have therefore requested my fellow citizens to think 
of a successor for me, to whom I shall deliver the public 
concerns with greater joy than I received them. I have 
the consolation too of having added nothing to my private 
fortune during my public service, and of retiring with 
hands as clean as they are empty.” 

A letter to William Short (June 12, 1807) deserves notice 
because it describes Jefferson’s Cabinet practice. A ques- 
tion had arisen whether an umpire should be appointed 
to assist “‘our discordant negotiators at Paris” : — 


“T made it therefore a subject of consultation with my coadjutors, 
as is our usage. For our government, although in theory subject to be 
directed by the unadvised will of the President, is and from its origin 
has been, a very different thing in practice. The minor business in each 
department is done by the Head of the department, on consultation 
with the President alone. But all matters of importance or difficulty 
are submitted to all the Heads of departments composing the Cabinet; 
sometimes by the President’s consulting them separately and succes- 
sively, as they happen to call on him; but in the greatest cases, by call- 
ing them together, discussing the subject maturely, and finally taking 
the vote, in which the President counts himself but as one. So that in 


[ 426 | 


Jefferson’s Second Administration 


ail important cases the executive is, in fact, a directory, which certainly 
the President might control; but of this there was never an example, 
either in the first or the,present administration. I have heard, indeed, 
that my predecessor sometimes decided things against his council.” 


In this case Jefferson consulted his colleagues sep- 
arately and finding them adverse he decided not to ap- 
point a third negotiator, though he had been inclined to 
favour the idea. It is said that some modern Presidents 
have treated their Cabinet officers as mere clerks, and 
have been much under the influence of private secretaries 
and unofficial advisers. This is in sharp contrast to the 
habitual practice of Washington and Jefferson, which was 
as near that of an English Cabinet as the constitutional 
differences between the two systems would admit. 

Jefferson was curiously indifferent to self-advertise- 
ment, as well as to ceremonial. He refused to allow pub- 
lic celebrations of his birthday, and even contrived to 
keep the date private. When asked to make a tour in the 
north, following a precedent set by Washington, he said 
that he could not arrogate to himself the claims Washing- 
ton had on the public homage. “I confess,” he wrote 
June 19, 1807, to a republican governor, “that I am not 
reconciled to the idea of a chief magistrate parading him- 
self through the several states as an object of public gaze, 
and in quest of an applause which, to be valuable, should 
be purely voluntary.” 


[ 427 | 


CHAPTER ILI 


AMERICAN TRADE WITH ENGLAND 
EMBARGO OR WAR 


They say that wars have been justly commenced upon denial of 
port, trade and commerce. — SELDEN’s Mare Clausum. 


GENERATION emerging from the unparalleled 
slaughter, confusion, and ruin caused by the most 
calamitous war of modern times is impelled by 

an instinct of self-preservation to study every device by 
which another may be averted. We have learnt by ex- 
perience — what history should have taught us — that a 
great war means conscription of life and wealth, public 
bankruptcy, and the confiscation of private property by 
taxation or debasement of money. After such a conflict 
an almost universal longing for peace prevails except 
among those whose professional career is dependent on 
war, or whose business is concerned with the provision of 
armaments. But ina few years, when the horrors of 1914- 
1918 have begun to fade, the danger will reappear, unless 
the peaceful mood is reinforced by study and reflection, 
and unless new barriers of law are erected strong enough 
not only to curb the natural pugnacity of mankind but 
to bring statesmanship and diplomacy into line with the 
moral and economic interests of civilisation. To this task 
of saving the world from a repetition of Armageddon — 


[ 428 ] 


American Trade with England 


the most pressing and important of all that engage the 
hearts and minds of good men — biography and history 
contribute much by, way of precept, experience, warning, 
or example. John Stuart Mill used to advise his disciples 
to study Condorcet’s life of the ‘divine Turgot.’ But the 
inspiration drawn from Turgot’s character is dimmed by 
the melancholy circumstances of his failure. In the case 
of Jefferson we see how a suppler statesman encompassed 
by difficulties, different indeed, but not less formidable, 
successfully maintained peace with honour during a world 
war; and for eight years, while European rulers loaded 
debt and taxes on the backs of their wretched subjects, 
went on relieving his countrymen of the burdens and ob- 
ligations that had been incurred during their struggle for 
independence. 

When Jefferson took office the Peace of Amiens was 
being negotiated ;! and American commerce thus gained 
a breathing space from the sea pirates and land robbers 
of Europe, as Jefferson appropriately designated the bel- 
ligerents. In spite of the illegal captures by French priva- 
teers and the naval rules of England which pressed so 
hardly on neutrals, American commerce was extending, 
and American shipowners were making fortunes out of the 
carrying trade. Returns presented to Congress in 1806 
give the average annual imports and exports of the United 
States for the three years 1802, 1803, and 1804. From 
these it appears that the exports of America (in English 
money) amounted on an annual average to over fifteen 
millions sterling and the imports to close upon seventeen 
millions. Of American exports only £5,300,000, about 
one-third, went to Great Britain and the British Domin- 


1The preliminaries were signed in London on October Ist, 1801, and the 
-treaty at Amiens on March 27, 1802. 


[ 429 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


ions, whereas of the imports £8,093,000, nearly half, came 
from Great Britain and its Dominions. Of America’s 
imports about nine millions consisted of manufactured 
goods, such as cotton, wool, and silk textiles, leather, 
glass, iron, and paper. The detailed figures are truly re- 
markable. They show that, whereas the imports of French 
manufactures were only valued at £275,000 per annum, 
those of Britain were valued at £6,845,000. While British 
manufacturers furnished about three-fourths of the total 
value of foreign manufactured goods consumed by the 
people of the United States, those of France furnished 
only one twenty-fourth. These figures are worth recalling ; 
if only to prove the colossal stupidity of the policy which 
the British government was now about to pursue, inspired 
by the Admiralty and supported with servile ingenuity 
by its Prize Courts. It may be added here that Amer- 
ican trade and shipping continued to expand until 1807, 
in spite of the increasing difficulties caused by the war. 
In the year ending October 1, 1806, American exports rose 
to the record figure of tor million dollars, of which 41 
millions were American produce, and the remainder for- 
eign goods re-exported. In the meantime the revenue of 
the United States, consisting almost exclusively of cus- 
toms, mounted from 13 million dollars in 1805 to nearly 
1§ million dollars in 1806. This remarkable growth of 
revenue from customs was referred to by President Jef- 
ferson in his Annual Message to Congress on December 
2, 1806. As the surpluses had become larger than the 
instalments of public debt which it was possible to repay 
to the creditors, the question arose (as we have seen) 
whether the excess revenue should be applied to reducing 
the tariff or to public utilities. Jefferson’s answer was 
that customs duties on articles of general use might be 


[ 430 ] 


American Trade with England 


repealed, but that the majority of duties were on foreign 
luxuries purchased by the rich, and that the proceeds 
might well be devoted to internal improvement. 

In spite of the profitable trade which American mer- 
chants and shipowners were enjoying the American gov- 
ernment had serious grievances against Britain. They 
complained first that American merchant vessels were 
constantly boarded on the high seas and searched for 
British seamen, many of them deserters, who found the 
American service more profitable than their own. Sec- 
ondly, they complained that their rights as neutrals were 
constantly violated by the seizure and condemnation of 
merchantmen engaged in lawful commerce. A third griev- 
ance was the infringement by British cruisers of Ameri- 
can maritime jurisdiction along the American coast. 
Broadly speaking Great Britain, having established her 
supremacy at sea and being able to impose her own sea 
law upon neutrals, had until 1805 conceded to America 
the right to trade with the French Colonies for articles 
intended for domestic consumption, and even to re-export 
such articles to any foreign port not blockaded by the 
British fleet. A direct trade between the French Colonies 
and France was prohibited. An American ship was not 
permitted to carry French Colonial produce to France; 
but Sir William Scott! had decided in the case of the 
Polly (1800) that, when such goods were landed and had 
paid duties in a neutral country, the continuity of the voy- 
age was broken and the trade legalised. Under this de- 
cision American shipping was carrying on a large trade 
until the summer of 1805, when Sir William Scott in the 
Essex case practically reversed his previous judgment by 
deciding that payment of duties in America was no evi- 

1 Afterwards Lord Stowell. 


[ 431 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


dence of dona fide importation, because under the revenue 
laws of the United States the merchant who imported 
to re-export was reimbursed, and even made a small profit 
on the transaction. This new decision played havoc with 
Americans who had embarked capital in what had hitherto 
been a legal and authorised trade. They now saw their 
vessels captured by British cruisers without any warning 
and brought into port for adjudication; and they cried 
out bitterly against the violence and inconsistency which 
had robbed them of their property for distribution in 
prize money. Congress after some hesitation passed in 
the spring of 1806 a Non-Importation law against British 
manufactures, which was to take effect in the following 
November. Its operation, however, was suspended by 
President Jefferson, who despatched Charles Pinckney 
with instructions to assist Monroe, then Minister in Lon- 
don, in negotiating a settlement with the British Gov- 
ernment. 

Meanwhile Napoleon, flushed with his triumphs over 
Austria and Prussia, conceived the notion of forcing Eng- 
land to capitulate by striking at her commerce with Eu- 
rope. Accordingly he issued from Berlin on November 
21, 1806, a decree, bombastically worded, prohibiting the 
inhabitants of France and her European ‘allies’ — that 
is to say, the states he had conquered — from all com- 
merce with Great Britain, or from admitting any mer- 
chandise or produce of Britain, or of its colonies. As a 
result of this decree, quantities of British merchandise 
belonging to Dutch and German merchants were con- 
fiscated. It was robbery by proclamation, and from this 
time the French Empire, founded on injustice, could only 
be maintained by military violence. But the British 
Government, with an unwisdom which passes under- 


[ 432 | 


American Trade with England 


standing, proceeded to retaliate by inflicting upon their 
own manufacturers and merchants enormously greater 
sufferings than those which Napoleon’s paper blockade — 
for it proved largely ineffective — could ever have caused. 

The interruption of British commerce with Europe and 
the cutting off in a large measure of some continental 
markets for British goods, especially in Holland and Ger- 
many, made it all the more important to maintain and if 
possible to enlarge the American market for British manu- 
factures. But Perceval and Canning stiffened their backs 
just when they should have been bending and conciliatory 
to America. They would make no concessions in the mat- 
ter of impressment or of indemnities for captures under 
the Essex decision. It is not surprising that the treaty 
signed by Monroe and Pinckney was not acceptable to 
Jefferson. 

But worse was to follow. On the 7th of January, 1807, 
the British government, cutting off its own nose to spite 
Napoleon, issued Orders in Council, prohibiting neutral 
vessels from trading between ports in the possession, or 
under the control, of the enemy. These Orders were in- 
tended to prevent the coasting trade of France and the 
subjugated countries of Europe from being carried on by 
neutral vessels; and, though neutral trade from a neutral 
port remained unmolested, they were bound to provoke 
America. 

Napoleon retaliated at the end of August with further 
measures for tightening the blockade against British goods, 
and some American vessels were seized by the French 
authorities and confiscated. Again folly provoked folly. 
On November 11, 1807, new Orders in Council were 
issued by the Court of St. James. Every port from which 
British trade was excluded was declared to be in a state of 


[ 433 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


blockade. All trade in the produce and manufactures of 
such countries was proclaimed illegal and the vessels 
employed in such trade made liable to seizure. Under 
these Orders American citizens and American ships might 
still trade with the French colonies, and they were still 
allowed to carry French colonial products to France, 
but only after calling at a British port and paying a Brit- 
ish duty. The object of this last provision was to burden 
enemy products with charges which would make them 
more costly than the same commodities if exported from 
Great Britain to the Continent, thereby affording relief 
to the merchants and planters of the British West Indies. 
No sophistries could conceal the broad effect and intention 
of these measures — to strike a blow at the American 
carrying trade and protect British merchant vessels from 
neutral competition. 

Perceval’s policy was not carried without opposition 
in the Cabinet, the House of Commons, and the country. 
Like most of the bad things done by bad Ministers in the 
name of England, his Orders in Council were stoutly re- 
sisted. Lord Bathurst, then President of the Board of 
Trade, in a written opinion to the Prime Minister,! argued 
that Britain’s ability to continue the war depended on the 
maintenance of its trade and revenues : — 


“The enemy form one great military empire. The extent of country 
he covers does not render him so dependent on an export and import 
trade. The whole of that trade might perish, and he could still continue 
the war. If one third of ours were to fail we should soon be reduced to 
peace.” 


But even the fear of being ‘reduced to peace’ did not 
move Perceval, nor did the argument that these edicts 


1 Unearthed by Henry Adams, the brilliant if sometimes captious historian 
of Jefferson’s administrations. 


[ 434 | 


American Trade with England 


against neutral commerce would involve the risk of war 
with America and Russia —a forecast which was ful- 
filled to the letter; for a few months later Russia declared 
war on England, and in 1812, after prolonged controversy 
and suffering on both sides, America followed suit. No 
second-rate lawyer was ever more obtuse than Perceval, 
and the wit of Canning, his foreign Secretary, seldom is- 
sued in wisdom. Bathurst also pointed out that the Or- 
ders in Council would do far more damage to England 
than to France. In order, he said, to raise in France the 
price of luxuries like sugar, spices, and drugs, we were to 
exasperate and alienate our best customer and force him 
to manufacture the articles he was buying from us. Ed- 
ward Baines, a contemporary writer well acquainted with 
the industries and commerce of Lancashire and the West 
Riding, put the case as follows : — 


“The inevitable consequences of a war with America would be to 
cut off one of the most extensive and beneficial sources of British com- 
merce. The exports of British manufactures to that country were im- 
mense, and the growing population and consequently increasing con- 
sumption would every year enlarge its demand upon English industry 
and ingenuity. The enterprise of the Trans-Atlantic merchants was 
perpetually enlarging their connections with distant markets already 
open to them, or discovering others still more remote, to which they 
conveyed the merchandise of Great Britain, pouring in return into her 
lap both the price of the commodity and the profits of the voyage. All 
these advantages would be not merely put to hazard but in many cases 
absolutely destroyed by an appeal to arms. The balance of property 
due from America to England amounted at this time to at least eight 
millions sterling; and the mere suspension of the payment of this 
sum would involve incalculable distresses. The calamity to which the 
West India Islands themselves might be exposed from a measure in- 
tended chiefly for their relief was also an important consideration, 
as American hostility would certainly inflict on these colonies new and 
formidable evils, by precluding those supplies of articles of the first 
“necessity, which seemed incapable of being procured from any other 


[ 435 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


quarter. The possible advantage of America, as a source of supply for 
timber and warlike stores, when the ports of the Baltic were likely to 
be shut against us, and even as a granary to Great Britain herself were 
not to be overlooked.” } 


Petitions from the merchants of Liverpool, half of whose 
trade was with the United States, were presented by 
Henry Brougham, a rising lawyer of the new liberal 
school. In April, 1806, Brougham began to write in the 
Edinburgh Review against the British policy of capture at 
sea. He pointed out that in theory at any rate plunder 
had already been abandoned by armies in civilised warfare 
on land; and Brougham — though he must have known 
that prize money and other perquisites supplied the ex- 
planation — professed bewilderment that this enlightened 
policy, which forbids the seizure of private property for the 
sake of gain even on hostile territory, “should still be ex- 
cluded from the scenes of maritime hostility ; or why the 
plunder of industrious merchants, which is thought dis- 
graceful on land, should still be accounted honourable at 
sea.” The reform of the laws of Naval Warfare proposed 
by Franklin and Jefferson after the War of Independ- 
ence, though persistently thwarted by British opposition, 
made some progress in the nineteenth century towards 
Freedom of the Seas; and at the close of the Crimean War 
it was at last agreed by the Powers that privateering should 
be abolished, that neutral property in enemy ships, and 
enemy property in neutral ships, except contraband of 
war, should be free from capture. Cruising for prize 
money remained lawful in British naval warfare until a 
few months before the outbreak of war with Germany 
when Mr. Asquith’s government abolished prize money, 


1See Wars of the French Revolution by Edward Baines, Book IV, Chapter 4. 
[ 436 | 


American Trade with England 


a reform which was speedily withdrawn after the war had 
begun. 

Though oppositicn in the House of Commons and in 
the country failed to prevent the Orders in Council, or to 
bring about their immediate withdrawal, the existence 
of this large body of opinion, supported by merchants of 
such authority as Alexander Baring and Sir Francis Bar- 
ing,' gave good ground for hope in America that a policy 
so suicidal would be reversed when the consequences pre- 
dicted made themselves felt; and there can be no doubt 
that this consideration helped Jefferson to avoid war. 
It is one of the many illustrations that history affords of the 
services an Opposition can render in time of war by re- 
sisting the superfluous follies and excesses which an un- 
criticised government in such circumstances almost in- 
variably commits. 

In France there was no opposition to the Berlin decrees. 
Liberty was extinguished along with Fraternity. Des- 
potism was in the saddle, freed by military success from 
all restraint. From Milan Napoleon issued, on November 
23, another edict commanding that all vessels entering 
the ports of France after touching in England should be 
seized and confiscated with their cargoes; and on Decem- 
ber 11, observing the British Orders of November, and 
the “infamous” principle, which British tyranny was as- 
serting as a right, he went so far as to declare that any ship 
of any nation, which submitted to be searched by an Eng- 
lish ship, or had paid any tax to the English government, 
was thereby denationalised and would be treated as Eng- 
lish property and therefore as good and lawful prize for 
French privateers. The British Islands at the same time 


1 At a public dinner about this time Sir Francis Baring exasperated the 
Tories by proposing the toast of President Jefferson. 


[ 437 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


were proclaimed to be in a state of blockade both by land 
and sea, whatever that might mean. 

What was Jefferson to do? The United States might 
acquiesce, leaving their merchants and shipowners to 
carry on such trade as they could under the double bur- 
dens and dangers imposed upon them by French and 
British aggressions on neutral rights; but such a course 
would have been humiliating to the national spirit, and 
Jefferson himself was far too indignant to suggest it to 
Congress. In a special message of December 18, 1807, 
he drew attention to the “great and increasing dangers 
with which our vessels, our seamen, and merchandise are 
threatened on the high seas and elsewhere from the bel- 
ligerent powers of Europe.’’ Congress, he thought, would 
perceive the advantages of inhibiting the departure of 
American vessels from the ports of the United States and 
the necessity of making preparations “for whatever events 
may grow out of the present crisis.’”” No one, it seems, ex- 
cept Jefferson had any intelligible or practicable policy be- 
tween war and surrender. As he put it to Levi Lincoln, 
in March, 1808, the real alternative was between embargo 
and war, “and in fact it is the last card we have to play 
short of war.” The other possible course he described 
later in the year to another correspondent as ‘‘submis- 
sion and tribute.’’ For, he went on, “all the Federal [7.e. 
Federalist] propositions for trading to the places per- 
mitted by the edicts of the belligerents result in fact in 
submission, although they do not choose to pronounce 
the naked word.” 

Both as a member of the Virginian assembly and as 
Governor of Virginia during the war Jefferson was familiar 
with the embargo policy; but it is obvious from his letters 
that one of his principal objects in recommending this 


[ 438 | 


American Trade with England 


device to Congress was to gain time, in the hope that 
either or both of the combatants would alter their policy, 
or that the increasiig pressure of commercial misery in 
Europe would bring the war to an end. The situation, 
as he saw it in December, 1807, was thus depicted to a 
correspondent: ‘“‘the whole world is laid under interdict 
by these two nations, and our vessels, their cargoes, and 
crews, are to be taken by the one or the other for what- 
ever place they may be destined out of our own limits. 
If therefore, on leaving our harbours, we are certainly to 
lose them, is it not better for the vessels, cargoes, and sea- 
men, to keep them at home?” The President’s recom- 
mendation was at once discussed by both Houses in secret 
session, and a Bill laying an embargo was passed on De- 
cember 22 by a majority of two to one in the House of 
Representatives, and by a much larger one in the Senate, 
despite the opposition of the Federalists and their new 
allies, the dissentient Republicans. By this law American 
vessels were prohibited from sailing for foreign ports and 
were confined to the coasting trade, and foreign vessels 
were prohibited from taking out cargoes from American 
ports. At the same time the Non-Importation law went 
into force. Thus British and French manufactures were 
excluded, and a stimulus given to the infant industries 
of the United States. Much mischief followed. The sur- 
plus products of America were deprived of their best mar- 
kets and fell to half their usual price. Most kinds of 
clothing, machinery, tools, etc. became very dear, and 
while the expenses of the farmers increased, their purchas- 
ing power diminished. Thousands of sailors were thrown 
out of employment, and the manufacturers were unable 
to absorb at all rapidly this surplus labour for want of the 
‘necessary skill and machinery. It 1s a question whether 


[ 439 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


the United States or the two belligerents felt the embargo 
most. But the misery of the manufacturing classes and 
labourers in England and on the continent was already 
so acute that only the weakness and impotence of the 
starving multitudes and the strength of the war organi- 
sations, aided by the patriotic antipathies which the great 
struggle had evoked, prevented the overthrow of the 
French tyranny and a popular revolution in Great Britain. 

In the United States, on the other hand, there was no 
question of starvation; but under Jefferson’s rule the free- 
dom of the press remained unimpaired; and the classes 
who suffered most from the embargo, especially in New 
England, soon began to show their discontent under the 
inconveniences and losses imposed upon them by the em- 
bargo. The shipowners of the maritime states discovered 
means of evading the law, and in spite of Gallatin’s efforts 
many vessels which sailed on coasting voyages contrived 
to make illicit gains by foreign commerce. Jefferson did 
all that was possible through the Governors and executive 
officers of the Union to check these evasions, and Con- 
gress passed supplementary legislation for the same pur- 
pose. Discontent spread. The law was opposed by force. 
There were riots in various towns, and in some cases 
armed resistance to the customs house officers. Troops 
were stationed along the Canadian border and gunboats 
patrolled the coast. At the same time the American 
Ministers in Paris and London were instructed that, if 
the Decrees and Orders were removed from American 
vessels, the embargo on trade with either or both the bel- 
ligerents would be suspended. Both the French and Eng- 
lish governments were given to understand in Jefferson’s 
words that, unless they withdrew their orders and decrees, 
“there will arrive a time when our interests will render 


[ 440 | 


American Trade with England 


war preferable to a continuance of the embargo; that 
when that time arrives, if one has withdrawn and the 
other not, we must declare war against that other; if 
neither shall have withdrawn, we must take our choice 
of enemies between them.”’! This is from a letter to Madi- 
son of March, 1808. Another in the following August to 
Governor Langdon remarks that the embargo measure 
had saved them from immediate war and had given time 
to call home “eighty millions of property, twenty or 
thirty thousand seamen and two thousand vessels.””’ Much 
of the idle capital, he thought, would go into manu- 
factures; and there would be plenty of seamen to mana 
fleet of privateers “whenever our citizens shall prefer war 
to a longer continuance of the embargo.”” Perhaps how- 
ever, he added, the Englishman, tired of the solitude he 
has created on the ocean, may return to honest principles, 
and his brother robber on the land may see that the grapes 
are sour. 

It is hardly possible to summarise in a few sentences 
the course of Jefferson’s mind during these anxious and 
critical months. He recognised fully from the first that 
the embargo could not be continued indefinitely, or any 
longer than the majority of people and Congress continued 
to acquiesce in the manifold inconveniences and losses 
which it imposed. It was in his eyes an experiment and a 
trial of national endurance. He saw that it was to the 
interest at any rate of England to withdraw the Orders 
in Council. He knew that the merchants of Liverpool 
and other places had presented petitions, and that the 

1 Meanwhile the Federalists, as Jefferson wrote June 23, 1808, were all the 
time “endeavouring to convince England that we suffer more from the Embargo 
than they do, and if they will but hold out for a while we must abandon it.”’ The 


Federalist newspapers were full of this argument, and they were freely quoted 
by the Ministerial press in London. 


[ 441 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


opposition in parliament had had the best of the argu- 
ment. His own losses as a landowner must have been 
heavy, but he never swerved from the view that his policy 
was far preferable to war; and his only regret was that 
the action of the Federalists and the danger of serious 
disaffection in New England — where the ‘Essex Junto’ ! 
led by Ames, Pickering, and Cabot began to threaten 
secession — forced him to abandon the embargo. It 
seems to have been the opinion of both Madison and Jef- 
ferson that, if the embargo had continued but a few 
months longer, the Orders in Council would have been 
withdrawn. 

What actually happened was described by Jefferson to 
T. M. Randolph in a letter of February 7, 1809: — 


“T thought Congress had taken their ground firmly for continuing 
their embargo until June and then war. But a sudden and unaccount- 
able revolution of opinion took place the last week, chiefly among the 
New England and New York members, and in a kind of panic they 
voted the fourth of March for removing the Embargo, and by such a 
majority as gave all reason to believe they would not agree either to 
war or Non-Intercourse. This too, after we had become satisfied that 
the Essex Junto had found their expectations desperate of inducing the 
people there to either separation or forcible opposition. The majority 
of Congress however has now rallied to the removing the Embargo 
on the fourth of March, Non-Intercourse with France and Great Brit- 
ain, trade everywhere else, and continued war preparations.” 


A clause for issuing letters of marque and reprisal, in- 
troduced by the Senate, was struck out by the House of 
Representatives. In the previous November, when the 
Congressional campaign was opening, Jefferson had de- 
cided, as his second presidential term was coming to an 
end, that it was not for him to press his own opinions upon 


1So called from Essex County, Massachusetts, which was the centre of their 
machinations, 


[ 442 | 


American Trade with England 


Congress; and for a good reason: “I should not feel 
justified in directing measures which those who are to 
execute them would disapprove.’”’ Moreover, while the 
repeal of the embargo was under discussion, John Quincy 
Adams had called upon Jefferson in the character of a 
friend of the Constitution and of the Union with confi- 
dential information ‘of the most unquestionable cer- 
tainty’ that certain citizens of New England were in nego- 
tiation with the British government in furtherance of an 
agreement that the New England states, without formally 
declaring their separation from the Union, should with- 
draw from all aid and obedience to the Federal govern- 
ment; in consideration of which their navigation and 
commerce would be freed from interruption by the Brit- 
ish. Adams believed that a Convention would take place 
and that, in order to avert a catastrophe, the repeal of the 
Embargo was absolutely necessary. Jefferson in his old 
age described this interview to W. B. Giles, and added: 
““However reluctant I was to abandon the measure — a 
measure which, persevered in a little longer, we had sub- 
sequent and satisfactory assurance would have effected 
its object completely — from that moment, and influenced 
by that information, I saw the necessity of abandoning 
it, and instead of effecting our purpose by this peaceable 
weapon, we must fight it out or break the Union. I then 
recommended to yield to the necessity of a repeal of the 
Embargo, and to endeavour to supply its place by the 
best substitute in which they could procure a general con- 
currence: 

An American, who coolly compares Jefferson’s policy 
with that which afterwards under his successor precipi- 
tated the mischievous and futile war of 1812, will realise 
that Jefferson’s statesmanship never shone brighter than 


[ 443 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


in these dark and difficult days of the embargo policy, for 
which he has been so often and so unjustly assailed. 
* * * * * * * 
Though the last year of his administration was crowded 
by misfortunes, Jefferson’s supremacy was unaffected. He 
received letters from the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Ver- 
mont, New Jersey, Maryland, and Georgia, and the Sen- 
ate of New York, and from the House of Delegates of Vir- 
ginia begging him to serve a third term; and his friends 
were convinced that, had his principles permitted, he 
would have been secure of re-election. One address, which 
was presented to him on the sixth of February by the 
Legislature of Virginia, and was said to have been drafted 
by William Wirt, afterwards Attorney General in Mon- 
roe’s Administration, must have given the President 
peculiar satisfaction; and with its recital of Jefferson’s 
services this chapter may fitly conclude : — 


“The General Assembly of your native state cannot close their ses- 
sion without acknowledging your services in the office which you are 
just about to lay down, and bidding you a respectful and affectionate 
farewell. 

“We have to thank you for the model of an administration conducted 
on the purest principles of republicanism; for pomp and state laid 
aside; patronage discarded; internal taxes abolished; a host of super- 
fluous officers disbanded ; the monarchic maxim that ‘a national debt is 
a national blessing,’ renounced, and more than thirty-three millions of 
our debt discharged; the native right to near one hundred millions of 
acres of our national domain extinguished; and without the guilt or 
calamities of conquest, a vast and fertile region added to our country, 
far more extensive than her original possessions, bringing along with it 
the Mississippi and the port of Orleans, the trade of the West to the 
Pacific Ocean, and in the intrinsic value of the land itself, a source of 
permanent and almost inexhaustible revenue. These are points in 
your administration which the historian will not fail to seize, to expand, 
and to teach posterity to dwell upon with delight. Nor will he forget 


[ 444 | 


American Trade with England 


our peace with the civilized world, preserved through a season of un- 
common difficulty and trial; the good will cultivated with the unfor- 
tunate aborigines of our country, and the civilization humanely extended 
among them; the lesson taught the inhabitants of the coast of Bar- 
bary, that we have the means of chastising their piratical encroach- 
ments, and awing them into justice; and that theme, which, above all 
others, the historic genius will hang upon with rapture, the liberty of 
speech and the press preserved inviolate, without which genius and 
science are given to man in vain. 

“Tn the principles on which you have administered the government, 
we see only the continuation and maturity of the same virtues and 
abilities which drew upon you in your youth the resentment of Dun- 
more. From the first brilliant and happy moment of your resistance to 
foreign tyranny until the present day, we mark with pleasure and with 
gratitude the same uniform and consistent character — the same warm 
and devoted attachment to liberty and the Republic, the same Roman 
love of your country, her rights, her peace, her honour, her prosperity.” 


The language of rhetoric is not always the language 
of truth. But never has a ruler better merited the grati- 
tude of his countrymen; and on this occasion at least 
democracy, often fickle in its favours and inconstant in 
its affections, rewarded a faithful champion with every 
tribute of gratitude, honour, and esteem as he stepped with 
quiet dignity from the public stage to rejoin his neigh- 
bours at Charlottesville. 


eee le 


BOOK VII 


LAST YEARS AT MONTICELLO 
CHAPTER I 
THE MADISON ADMINISTRATIONS. 1809-1817 


. . . Nec vos, dulcissima mundi 
Nomina, vos Musae, libertas, otia, libri, 
Hortique sylvaeque anima remanente relinquam. 


Nor by me e’er shall you, 
You of all names the sweetest, and the best, 
You Muses, books, and liberty, and rest; 
You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be, 
As long as life itself forsakes not me. 
— ABRAHAM COWLEY 


time comes for him to relinquish high office. But 

Jefferson handed over the reins of government to 
James Madison with something more than the composure 
of a philosopher; for like Wordsworth’s Happy Warrior, 
“conspicuous object in a nation’s eye,’ he was 


\ STATESMAN is not always seen at his best when the 


“Yet a soul, whose master bias leans 
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes.” 


It was in this spirit that he wrote just before leaving 
Washington to his friend Dupont de Nemours in Paris: 
“Within a few days I retire to my family, my books, and 
farms; and having gained the harbour myself I shall look 
on my friends still buffeting the storm, with anxiety in- 


[ 446 ] 


” Eo 


Ee 





_ = 





The Madison Administrations 


deed, but not with envy. Never did a prisoner released 
from his chains feel such relief as I feel on shaking off the 
shackles of power.” Nature, he thought, had intended 
him for the tranquil pursuits of science; these were his su- 
preme delight. But public exigencies and public duty had 
forced him to navigate the boisterous seas of politics. He 
was happy now to retire, carrying home ‘the most con- 
soling proofs of public approbation.’ The ex-President 
was within a month of his sixty-sixth birthday; but his 
mind was in full vigour and his body was still equal to 
great exertion. On his way back from Washington to 
Monticello with a caravan of furniture and books he en- 
countered bad roads and worse weather. But he took no 
harm, though one day he rode eight hours on horseback 
through a terrific snowstorm. Clearly his strength was 
equal to a third term of office. Only republican scruples 
and a real preference for Monticello explain his choice. 

There was plenty todo. His farms consisted of over five 
thousand acres with 113 slaves at Monticello, and over 
four thousand with 85 slaves at Poplar Forest. Seventy 
miles or more of rough road separated Monticello from 
the Poplar Estate, which he visited regularly for a few 
weeks every year. At Monticello wheat was the main 
crop; at Poplar Forest he also raised tobacco. On the 
Rivanna he had a flour mill, with a dam, canal, and lock 
in which he had invested a good deal of capital. He had 
also a number of workshops for making tools and agri- 
cultural implements, and hand-machines for spinning and 
weaving into cloth the wool of his flocks. During his 
presidency both estates had been mismanaged by factors, 
and since the embargo agricultural profits had dwindled 
for lack of markets. Jefferson had tried to let his land in 
holdings of moderate size to farmers. Unfortunately he 


[ 447 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


could not find suitable tenants, and as time went on 
debts and difficulties accumulated. His friend and biog- 
rapher, Tucker, remarks that he was far too easy going 
with his overseers. Those who were indolent he was apt 
to excuse, and a knave escaped detection. He was a gen- 
erous and benevolent master. His slaves were well fed and 
well clothed. Those who had mechanical aptitudes re- 
ceived special training and encouragement. A skilful 
craftsman, he lavished money on tools for his workshop, 
on scientific instruments, on new machinery and inven- 
tions, on books, and most of all on buildings — for archi- 
tecture was his most expensive passion. Much of the 
labour, says Tucker, which should have been appropriated 
to husbandry, was requisitioned to provide timber, stone, 
and brick. Last but not least a truly Virginian munifi- 
cence taxed the estates to supply provender for the horses 
of his frequent visitors, and a hospitable table for guests, 
invited and uninvited, who made their way from all parts 
of the world and at all seasons of the year to far-famed 
Monticello. 

The patriarch’s busy leisure was sweetened by the so- 
ciety of his daughter, Mrs. Randolph and her children, 
soon to be reinforced by another generation. He loved to 
play with the children, to superintend their education, and 
to devise games and amusements. 

Apart from financial troubles which accumulated in the 
last years of his life, his chief complaint was the burden 
of correspondence; not with old friends — for in that he 
rejoiced — but with the innumerable persons, pushful or 
inquisitive, or genuinely anxious for guidance, often per- 
fect strangers, who consulted him as guide, philosopher, 
and friend. He was the oracle to whom all appealed for 
advice or assistance. His reading was as various as his 


[ 448 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


tastes. Nothing came amiss. A letter from a correspond- 
ent would often put him on a _ new train of thought or 
research; and he would turn up a Christian Father, an 
old book of travel, a work on mathematics or science or 
law or government. Among his pet studies and hobbies 
were the customs and languages of the American Indians, 
philology, systems of education, Anglo-Saxon, the origin 
of the common law, astronomy, meteorology, gardening, 
botany, and agriculture. The classics seem to have be- 
come more and more his favourite recreation. His inten- 
tion of withdrawing altogether from the contentions of 
politics was frustrated, partly because the two succeeding 
Presidents, Madison and Monroe, whose administrations 
covered the next sixteen years of his life, constantly con- 
sulted him at important crises in national affairs; partly 
because his fame as prophet and inspirer of republicanism 
remained undiminished and unchallenged; so that his 
written opinions often had the character of acts, and his 
personal influence from time to time changed the course 
of events. 

A few days after his return to Monticello he wrote to 
Madison, pointing out the danger of war and the peculiar 
embarrassments in which it would involve a government 
exposed to the attacks of so many mendacious and licen- 
tious papers, which played upon the “‘ wonderful credulity 
of the members of Congress.” It was his fervent prayer 
that war should be avoided, though a time might come 
when it would be less injurious than unresisted depreda- 
tion. His anxiety for the new President, whom he sup- 
ported from first to last with undeviating loyalty and affec- 
tion, was well founded. In political opinions Madison was 
Jefferson’s brother; in scientific knowledge of politics he 
was Jefferson’s equal. But he had no divine spark of genius, 


[ 449 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


nor the personal magnetism which had ensured harmony 
and unity in Jefferson’s Cabinet. Nor was he fitted 
either to resist a war party or to conduct a war. It would 
be unfair to say, as some do, that he was timid, irresolute, 
or lacking in energy. On the contrary, from the very first 
emergence of parties Madison had displayed resourceful- 
ness and courage in debate and a dogged tenacity of pur- 
pose in leading the opposition to Hamilton. But he was 
not quite the man to steer the only safe and wise course 
between naval Scylla and military Charybdis. Still less 
when driven to extremities would he be likely to ride on 
the whirlwind and direct the storm. 

The story of Madison’s difficulties as President belongs 
to Madison’s life. They began with sharp controversies 
in the Cabinet. In 1810 and 1811 foreign difficulties accu-. 
mulated. There was little to choose between France and 
England on the score of outrages upon American trade 
and shipping. But there was a jingo wing of the Republi- 
can party which favoured war with England, and an 
ample supply of grievances was available. These ‘War 
Hawks,’ with Henry Clay at their head, seem to have 
persuaded Madison in 1811 that he must take a strong 
line, if he wished to secure a second term. We all know 
the tribe of politicians who talk their country into war 
and inspire others to die at the front. Clay and his men 
proclaimed “‘the national spirit and expectation”; they 
gave out that the American republic, if it was to recover 
its dignity and the respect of mankind, must fight some- 
body. Madison was accused of entering into a compact 
with Clay. But it seems more probable that, ambitious 
of a second term, he resolved against his better judgment 
to swim with the stream, to abandon the wise Fabian pol- 
icy of cunctation, and to adopt measures which would 


[ 450 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


probably lead to war. He got the nomination, was re- 
elected after a close struggle, and began to use menacing 
language against Great Britain in the winter of 1811-12. 
Measures were taken to increase the army and navy; and 
a batch of papers bought from John Henry, an Irish ad- 
venturer, was laid before Congress in March, 1812, to 
stimulate the war spirit by showing that the Governor of 
Canada was abetting a separatist movement in the eastern 
states. As a matter of fact the country was disunited. 
The Federalists, who had tried to force war upon Jeffer- 
son a few years before, were all for peace, now that their 
ships could sail again on profitable hazards. But Clay 
and the hot heads clamoured for Honour and Glory. 
“Weak as we are,” cried Clay, “we could fight France 
too if necessary in a good cause — the cause of honour and 
independence. .°... War after all is not so terrible a 
thing. There is no terror in it except its novelty.” Clay 
was a Kentuckian. Significantly enough the most belli- 
cose states were those which would be furthest removed 
from hostilities. 

The Federalists and a minority of Republicans, who had 
brilliant spokesmen in Josiah Quincy and John Randolph, 
tried to procrastinate; and they were nearly successful. 
At the beginning of April, 1812, the President recom- 
mended an embargo policy, which was interpreted to 
mean war. In May he was nominated for re-election by 
the Congressional caucus. At the beginning of June came 
his war message, and on June 18 a bill passed by both 
Houses was signed by the President, who proclaimed war 
against Great Britain on the following day. The minori- 
ties in Congress for peace were large — 49 against 79 in 
the House, and 13 against 19 in the Senate. Nor did the 
outbreak of hostilities put an end to the opposition. It 


[451 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


continued until peace was signed, and assumed in some 
sections of the New England States an almost seditious 
character. 

Meanwhile the English parliament was inquiring into 
the policy and consequences of the Orders in Council. 
Petitioners from the manufacturing districts proved con- 
clusively that the loss of the American markets was respon- 
sible for much of the unemployment and starvation wages 
which then prevailed in the manufacturing districts of 
the kingdom. It was shown also from public documents 
issued by the American government that if the British 
Orders in Council were rescinded the ports and markets of 
the United States would be reopened to British merchan- 
dise. The assassination of Perceval on May 11, 1812, re- 
moved the most obstinate opponent of conciliation with 
America. The new government formed by the Earl of 
Liverpool, with Castlereagh as foreign secretary, deter- 
mined to repeal the Orders in Council; and on June 23 a 
proclamation revoking them appeared in the London 
Gazette, just five days after Madison had declared war 
against Great Britain. Had there been telegraphic com- 
munication between the two countries peace would have 
been preserved. For several weeks after the declaration of 
war the British government believed that it had restored 
peaceful and amicable relations with the United States. 
But President Madison meanwhile had declared war, be- 
cause the British government had refused to do what it 
had already determined to do. 

When the news reached America, an Armistice ought to 
have been arranged; but the Government was committed, 
and the partisans of war were not to be baulked. A large 
army was being enrolled for the conquest of Canada, 
which was thought to be an easy prey. But when Congress 


[ 452] 


The Madison Administrations 


met in the autumn, the invasion had ended in humiliating 
defeat. Fortunately for Madison the skill of American 
seamen and gunners had won several brilliant naval vic- 
tories, and he was re-elected to the Presidency by 128 to 89. 
Carl Schurz in his excellent life of Henry Clay declares 
that Madison was swept into the current of war by the 
impetuosity of young America led by the fiery, fanciful, 
and finished oratory of Henry Clay. The Federalists had 
a good case against continuing the war when its real 
cause, the Orders in Council, was found to have been re- 
moved; and when Quincy denounced the invasion of 
Canada as a buccaneering expedition it was not easy to 
find a satisfactory answer, especially after its inglorious 
and humiliating failure. In January the government was 
heavily assailed in Congress. Henry Clay rallied the wav- 
ering Republicans in a speech long remembered for the 
purple passage in which he dexterously used Quincy’s 
attack on Jefferson for a eulogy of the retired hero: — 


“Neither his retirement from public office, nor his eminent services, 
nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot from the coarse assaults 
of party malevolence. Sir, in 1801 he snatched from the rude hand of 
usurpation the violated Constitution of his country, and that is his 
crime. He preserved that instrument in form, and substance, and spirit, 
a precious inheritance for generations to come; and for this he can never 
be forgiven. How vain and impotent is party rage directed against 
such a man! He is not more elevated by his lofty residence upon the 
summit of his favorite mountain than he is lifted, by the serenity of his 
mind, and the consciousness of a well spent life, above the malignant 
passions and bitter feelings of the day.” 


Jefferson’s fame was indeed a bulwark of Madison’s 
administration, which was making a sad mess of the war. 
“The War and Navy departments were wretchedly man- 
aged. There was incapacity above and below. The Treas- 
ury was in a state of exhaustion. By April 1 the requisi- 


[ 453 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


tions of the War and Navy departments must have gone 
unsatisfied, had not Astor, Parish, and Girard, three rich 
foreigners, come to the assistance of the government.” ! 
Jefferson acquiesced sadly in the policy adopted by the 
government. He never allowed himself to lose confidence 
in the integrity and good intentions of Madison, whatever 
he may have thought of his capacity and statesmanship. 
When war came, he defended it in letters to friends abroad 
by reciting the intolerable grievances and humiliations 
which America had endured; but as a rule his language 
against Napoleon was at least as strong as against Britain, 
and sometimes stronger. At first he hoped for the con- 
quest of Canada. When those hopes were dashed by the 
cowardly capitulation of General Hull, he began to long 
for an honourable settlement, and rejoiced when Alexander 
of Russia in March, 1813, offered his mediation. Madison 
by this time was equally eager for peace. Early in May, 
1814, he despatched Gallatin and Bayard to St. Petersburg. 
But the British government preferred direct negotiations. 
Thereupon the President promptly appointed a new com- 
mission, which included Gallatin and Clay. They even- 
tually met the English commissioners at Ghent in August, 
1814, and at last signed a status quo treaty of peace on 
December 24, after one of the most futile wars in modern 
history. 

Among Jefferson’s correspondents was General Kos- 
ciusko, who had fought in the American War of Indepen- 
dence, and had consigned his interests and will as regards 
his American property to the care of Jefferson. To this 
famous champion of liberty Jefferson from time to time 
remitted money accompanied by letters when safe con- 
veyance offered. In one of these (February 26, 1810) he 


1 See Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, Chapter V. 
[ 454 |] 


The Madison Administrations 


explains that as President his letters were necessarily dry, 
as he had to avoid politics, but now retired from public 


concerns he can write more freely. Then he describes his 
life : — 


“T am retired to Monticello, where in the bosom of my family and 
surrounded by my books I enjoy repose to which I have been long a 
stranger. My mornings are devoted to correspondence, from breakfast 
to dinner I am in my shops, in my garden, or on horseback among my 
farms; from dinner to dark I give to society and recreation with my 
neighbors and friends; and from candle light to early bedtime I read. 
My health is perfect; and my strength considerably reinforced by the 
activity of the course I pursue; perhaps it is as great as usually falls 
to the lot of near sixty-seven years of age. I talk of ploughs and har- 
rows, of seeding and harvesting, with my neighbors; and of politics 
too, if they choose, with as little reserve as the rest of my fellow citizens, 
and feel at length the blessing of being free to do and say what I please, 
without being responsible for it to any mortal.” 


He found pleasure in directing the studies of a number of 
young men living in the neighbourhood, who had the use 
of his library and counsel and made a part of his society. 
“In advising the course of their reading I endeavour to 
keep their attention fixed on the main objects of all science, 
the freedom and happiness of man,” so that when they 
came to bear a share in the government of their country 
they would keep ever in view the sole objects of all legiti- 
mate government. 

In the following year (1811) the most interesting event 
of his life is the renewal of his old friendship with John 
Adams, which was never afterwards broken and has left 
us one of the most precious morsels of correspondence in 
American literature. It was brought about by the efforts 
of their mutual friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush. When he 
_ approached Jefferson, Jefferson at once answered explain- 
ing the details of their alienation after the presidential 


[455 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


election of 1800 and “‘those scenes of midnight appoint- 
ment which have been condemned by all men.” He had 
however never lost his good opinion of Adams, but 
thought it was a part of his honest character “to sus- 
pect foul play in those of whom he is jealous and not 
easily to relinquish his suspicion.” During the summer 
two neighbouring friends of Jefferson’s made a tour north- 
wards and at Boston fell into the company of Adams, who 
invited them to pass a day with him at Braintree. There 
he spoke without reserve about his Cabinet and about the 
newspapers, and in the course of the conversation said: 
“T always loved Jefferson and still love him.” The two 
friends brought back their report to Monticello, and on 
December 5, Jefferson wrote to Rush: “This is enough 
for me. I only needed this knowledge to revive towards 
him all the affections of the most cordial moments of our 
lives. Changing a single word only in Dr. Franklin’s 
character of him, I knew him to be always an honest 
man, often a great one, but sometimes incorrect and pre- 
cipitate in his judgments.” They had differed in political 
opinions, “but his opinions are as honestly formed as my 
own,” and why should differences in politics, religion, phi- 
losophy, or anything else be a cause of separation? A 
few weeks later a letter came from Adams with a present 
of homespun, which evoked an affectionate reply from 
Monticello: ‘A letter from you calls up recollections very 
dear to my mind. It carries me back to the times when, 
beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow 
labourers in the same cause, struggling for what is most 
valuable to man, his right of self government.” 

The correspondence which followed continued to the 
end of their lives — and even in death they were not 
divided. It is replete with out-of-the-way learning. The 


[ 456 | 


The Madison Administrations 


whimsical talents of the sage of Quincy appear at their 
best and draw in turn rich stores from Monticello. In the 
spring of 1812 they began to discuss the Richmond and 
Wabash ‘prophets’ and other crazy folk who pretended to 
be in communication with an unseen world. Then they 
went on to the traditions and origins of the Red Indians, 
whom some believed to be descended from the Jews. 
From this they passed to the American parties, and the 
debatable ground of politics and religion, which caused an 
animated exchange of letters in the summer or autumn of 
1813. Adams’ spirited defence against the imputation of 
monarchical and aristocratic leanings, and his complacent 
self-satisfaction in recalling his own correct predictions of 
the course of the French Revolution at a time when Jeffer- 
son and his friends were so confident and optimistic, afford 
us much entertainment. So does this contrast between 
the political consequences of his own wisdom and Jeffer- 
son’s unwisdom: ‘“ My defence of the Constitution and 
Discourses on Davila laid the foundation for that immense 
unpopularity which fell like a tower of Siloam upon me. 
Your steady defence of democratical principles, and your 
invariable favourable opinion of the French Revolution 
laid the foundation of your unbounded popularity.” In 
another letter he quotes (a little mischievously perhaps) 
from Priestley’s correspondence with Lindsay, where 
Priestley said of Jefferson: “He is generally considered 
an unbeliever; if so however he cannot be far from us, and 
I hope in the way to be almost if not altogether what we 
are. He now attends public worship very regularly, and 
his moral conduct was never impeached.”” Uponthis Adams 
remarks cheerfully: ‘“‘Now I see not but you are as good 
_a Christian as Priestley and Lindsay. Piety and morality 
were the end and object of the Christian according to 


[457 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


them and according to you. They believed in the resur- 
rection of Jesus, in his miracles, and in his inspiration; 
but what inspiration ?”’ 

Then followed a perfect cataract of provocative ques- 
tions, but Jefferson was not easily drawn into contention. 
He returned no pinpricks; and when an unscrupulous 
author published two or three old private letters, in which 
he had roundly rated Adams for his reactionary policy 
as President, Jefferson smoothed the ruffled feelings of his 
old friend, and deftly attributed the political errors of the 
Adams administration to the rascality of those Hamil- 
tonian colleagues against whom John Adams was per- 
petually thundering. 

How much of his time Jefferson gave to current politics 
isnot clear. Madison and Monroe, who to Jefferson’s great 
satisfaction, joined the Cabinet as Secretary in 1811, fre- 
quently visited him at Monticello. He was indeed respon- 
sible for the reconciliation between the two rivals, and so 
smoothed the way for Monroe’s presidency. Until the war | 
Madison kept Jefferson very fully informed of all that was 
going on, and Jefferson exerted all his influence to prevent 
or heal the personal or political dissensions which had 
begun to endanger the unity and discipline of the repub- 
lican party. Among his friends Duane, editor of the 
Aurora in Virginia, caused some commotion by sharply 
attacking Gallatin, and by criticisms of the President. 
Getting into financial difficulties Duane came to Jefferson 
for help ; and thereupon Jefferson read hima faithful lecture 
on the duty of supporting his party and its chief in critical 
times. The Republicans, he reminded Duane, are the 
nation. The Federalists are but a faction, powerful in- 
deed in the command of money and supported by England. 
On the republican party therefore the last hope of human 


[ 458 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


liberty in this world rested. They should therefore close 
their ranks, leave the President free to choose his own col- 
leagues and pursue his own measures. Principles alone 
could justify schism. If we find our government rushing 
headlong towards monarchy, violating trial by jury, free- 
dom of the press, or freedom of opinion, or raising stand- 
ing armies for the suppression of personal liberty “‘then 
indeed let us withdraw and call the nation to its tents. 
But while our functionaries are wise and honest and vigi- 
lant, let us move compactly under their guidance... 
Things may here and there go a little wrong. It is not in 
their power to prevent it.’ 

In another letter to Duane he discussed the duties of a 
republican editor: “‘I think an editor should be inde- 
pendent, that is of personal influence, and not be moved 
from his opinions on the mere authority of any individual. 
But with respect to the general opinion of the political 
section with which he habitually accords, his duty seems 
very like that of a member of Congress.’’ Some Congress- 
men and journalists, he went on, seem to think that inde- 
pendence requires them to follow always their own opinion 
without respect for that of others. That had never been 
his own view or practice. When he differed from those of 
the same political principles with whom he generally 
thought and acted he began to suspect that his own opin- 
ion might be wrong. To be free from self distrust and to 
be devoid of the spirit of compromise was but a false kind 
of independence. The example of John Randolph should 
be a caution to all honest and prudent men to sacrifice a 
little of self confidence and to go with their friends, al- 
though they might sometimes think they were going 
wrong. This would be his own course. He would go with 
the government, and support their measures ‘‘whether I 


[459 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


think them right or wrong; because I know they are hon- 
est, and are wiser and better informed than I am.” So 
wrote Jefferson in the spring of 1811.1 At the same time 
he was vigorously defending Gallatin to his friend Wil- 
liam Wirt, a rising lawyer and politician in Virginia, and 
deploring the efforts of Duane and others “to drive from 
the administration the ablest man except the President, 
who ever was in it, and to beat down the President him- 
self because he is unwilling to part with so able a coun- 
sellor.” The letter to Wirt is interesting because it shows 
clearly that Jefferson was supporting Madison against the 
war party. Duane, he says, is an honest man and sin- 
cerely republican, but his readers should be on their guard 
against his occasional aberrations : — 


“He is eager for war against England; hence his abuse of the two last 
Congresses, but the people wish for peace. The re-elections of the same 
men proveit. And indeed war against Bedlam would be just as rational 
as against Europe in its present condition of demoralisation. When 
peace becomes more losing than war, we may prefer the latter on prin- 
ciples of pecuniary consideration. But for us to attempt by wars to 
reform all Europe and bring them back to principles of morality and a 
respect for the equal rights of nations would show us to be only ‘mani- 
acs. We should indeed have the merits of the good intentions as well as 
of the folly of the hero of La Mancha.” 


A few days after this letter he was able to congratulate 
his friend Monroe on entering into the national councils. 
The printers, he said in the letter, are “‘thirsting after war, 
some against France, some against England, but the peo- 
ple wish for peace with both.” 

Towards the autumn of 1811, when prospects of war 

1A few weeks later he recommends to Duane Komarzewski’s History of 
Poland. “Though without any charms of style or composition it gives a lesson 


which all our countrymen should study; the example of a country erased from 
the map of the world by the dissensions of its own citizens.” ; 


[ 460 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


with England became menacing, Jefferson foresaw the pos- 
sibility of a separate treaty between Old and New Eng- 
land on the principles of neutrality and commerce; but 
he hopes that the expected death of George III will 
come to their relief, and if only some stroke of fortune 
could rid them at the same time of Napoleon “‘the people 
of England might lose their fears, and recover their sober 
senses again.” Shortly afterwards in a letter to an English 
botanist he deplores the contest that British usurpations 
may force upon nations a thousand leagues apart “‘who 
have not a single motive or interest but of mutual friend- 
ship and of interchange of comforts. That such a thing 
should be possible shows the monstrous character of the 
system under which we live.” 

To his son-in-law John W. Eppes in September he wrote 
expressing his continued hopes of peace, through a change 
of ministers in England which might result in a revocation 
of the Orders in Council. “JI am so far in that case from 
believing that our reputation will be tarnished by our not 
having mixed in the mad contests of the rest of the world 
that, setting aside the ravings of pepper-pot politicians, — 
of whom there are enough in every age and country — I] 
believe it will place us high in the scale of wisdom to have 
preserved our country tranquil and prosperous during a 
contest which prostrated the honour, power, independence, 
laws, and property of every country on the other side of 
the Atlantic.” 

A solar eclipse on the 17th of September was watched 
and timed by Jefferson and a friend with telescopes and 
clock, from Monticello. There are several letters of his on 
the subject. “I used myself an equatorial telescope,” he 
says. A friend who happened to be with him observed 
the eclipse through an achromatic telescope of Bollard’s. 


[ 461 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


“Two others attended the time-pieces. I had a perfect 
observation of the passage of the sun over the meridian.” 
Owing to an error caused by the clock some of the obser- 
vations were imperfect, and Jefferson became interested 
in the preparation of a clock on which he could rely. He 
applied to Mr. Voigt of Philadelphia for a timepiece 
with a special kind of pendulum and with an alternative 
pendulum devised by Jefferson which could be substi- 
tuted for Voigt’s. In giving his instructions Jefferson 
writes : — 


“The bob should be spherical, of lead, and its radius I presume about 
oneinch. As I should not have the convenience of a room of uniform 
temperature, the suspending rod should be such as not to be affected 
by heat or cold, nor yet so heavy as to affect too sensibly the centre of 
oscillation. Would not a rod of wood not larger than a large wire 
answer this double view? I remember Mr. Rittenhouse told me he had 
made experiments on some occasion on the expansibility of wood length- 
wise by heat, which satisfied him that it was as good as the gridiron for 
a suspendor of the bob. By the experiments on the strength of wood 
and iron in supported weights appended to them, iron has been found 
but about six times as strong as wood, while its specific gravity is eight 
times as great. Consequently a rod of it of equal strength will weigh 
but three fourth of one of iron, and disturb the centre of oscillation less 
in proportion. A rod of wood of white oak, e.g. not larger than a seine 
twine would probably support a spherical bob of lead of one inch radius. 
It might be worked down to that size I suppose by the Cabinet makers, 
who are in the practice of preparing smaller threads of wood for inlay- 
ing. The difficulty would be in making it fast to the bob at one end 
and scapement at the other, so as to regulate the length with ease and 
accuracy.” 


He relies upon Mr. Voigt’s ingenuity to carry out these 
instructions, which are inserted here as evidence that, 
just as in politics Jefferson united theory with practice, so 
in mechanics he united the skill of the craftsman with the 
knowledge of the scientist. | 


[ 462 | 


0 a ite 


The Madison Administrations 


At this very time as President of the Philosophical So- 
ciety he sent to a committee which was engaged on consider- 
ing a fixed international standard for measures, weights, 
and coins a very learned disquisition to show that a stand- 
ard “‘whether it be matter or motion should be fixed by 
nature invariable and accessible to all nations, independ- 
ently of others, and with a convenience not dispropor- 
tioned to its utility.”” This he found in the pendulum, and 
the ratio for the parts and multiples of the unit would be 
“the decimal without a doubt.” He suggested that they 
should enter into correspondence in a spirit of equality 
with their sister institutionsin England, France, and other 
countries for the purpose of interchanging information and 
arriving at common measures of weight and measurement. 

Of all the important sciences Jefferson thought medicine 
the most backward, and agreed with a correspondent that 
the best foundation for improvement would be a natural 
history of the diseases of the human body. “While sur- 
gery,’ he wrote, “‘is seated in the temple of the exact 
sciences, medicine has scarcely entered its threshold. Her 
theories have passed in such rapid succession as to prove 
the insufficiency of all, and their fatal errors are recorded 
in the necrology of man.” For veterinary doctors Jeffer- 
son had an even greater contempt than for those who pro- 
fessed to understand the human body, and few men knew 
more than he did about horses or cared more for them. 

Before the outbreak of the war with England and 
throughout its duration Jefferson occupied himself much 
with the political economy of war in all its aspects. A 
scientific believer in Free Trade and sound money, fervent 
in his hatred of debt and inconvertible paper currency, he 
_was forced to consider how far war, which upsets every- 
thing, could best be sustained. British naval policy had 


[ 463 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


driven him to the view that the United States must manu- 
facture all essentials for itself in order to ensure economic 
and political independence, and so after war was declared 
he wrote to Kosciusko June 28, 1812:— 


“Our manufactures are now very nearly on a footing with those of 
England. She has not a single improvement which we do not possess, 
and many of them better adapted by ourselves to our ordinary use. We 
have reduced the large and expensive machinery for most things to the 
compass of a private family, and every family of any size is now getting 
machines on a small scale for their household purposes. Quoting my- 
self as an example, and I am much behind many others in this business, 
my household manufactures are just getting into operation on the scale 
of a carding machine costing $60 only, which may be worked by a girl 
of twelve years old, a spinning machine, which may be had for $10, 
carrying 6 spindles for wool, to be worked by a girl also, another which 
can be made for $25, carrying 12 spindles for cotton, and a loom, with a 
flying shuttle, weaving its twenty yards a day. I need 2,000 yards of 
linen, cotton, and woollen yearly, to clothe my family, which this ma- 
chinery, costing $150 only, and worked by two women and two girls, 
will more than furnish. For fine goods there are numerous establish- 
ments at work in the large cities, and many more daily growing up; 
and of merinos we have some thousands, and these multiplying fast. 
We consider a sheep for every person as sufficient for their woollen cloth- 
ing, and this State and all to the north have fully that, and those to the 
south and west will soon be up to it. In other articles we are equally 
advanced, so that nothing is more certain than that, come peace when 
it will, we shall never again go to England for a shilling where we have 
gone for a dollar’s worth. Instead of applying to her manufacturers 
there, they must starve or come here to be employed. I give you these 
details of peaceable operations, because they are within my present 
sphere. Those of war are in better hands, who know how to keep their 
own secrets.” 


On receiving at the end of June from Madison his decla- 
ration of war Jefferson tells his friend that to keep the war 
popular two things are necessary, the first to stop Indian 
barbarities; this would be achieved by the conquest of 


[ 464 | 


The Madison Administrations 


Canada. Secondly, to furnish markets for American 
produce. They were cutting the largest wheat crop on 
record. 


“It would be mortifying to the farmer to see such an one rotting in 
his barn. It would soon sicken him of war. Nor can this be a matter 
of wonder or of blame on him. Ours is the only country on earth where 
War is an instantaneous and total suspension of all the objects of his 
industry and support. For carrying our produce to foreign markets 
our own ships, neutral ships, and even enemy ships under neutral flag, 
which I would wink at, would probably suffice. But the coasting trade 
is of double importance because both seller and buyer are disappointed, 
and both are our own citizens.” 


In July Jefferson had his learned tract on the Battle 
of New Orleans, printed by a New York publisher. At 
this time he fancied the acquisition of Canada as far as 
Quebec would be “a mere matter of marching,” and that 
the following year would see the capture of Quebec and 
Halifax, and the final expulsion of England from the Amer- 
ican continent. 

On August 8, when news came of the repeal of the Orders 
in Council, Jefferson admitted that if it had come earlier 
it might have prevented war; but now they should have 
Canada to indemnify them for the thousand ships taken 
and the six thousand seamen impressed, with an agree- 
ment to protect American seamen in the future. This 
done they could have peace with England, and then war 
with France. But his confident expectations were shat- 
tered by General Hull’s surrender in September, and he 
then began to see that the conquest of Canada would not 
be easy. Depressed by these thoughts he found diversion 
in mathematics, the passion of his life when he was young. 
“The same passion has returned upon me but with unequal 
powers. Processes which I then read off with the facility 


[ 465 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


of common discourse now cost me labour and time and 
slow investigation.” 

About this time a poor Frenchman called at Monticello 
to inform Jefferson that he had invented perpetual motion. 
Franklin, he said, had assured him that it was not impos- 
sible. Without entering into a contest on his abuse of 
Franklin’s name Jefferson gave him this answer: “The 
Almighty himself could not construct a machine of per- 
petual motion, while the laws exist which He has pre- 
scribed for the government of matter in our system; see- 
ing that the equilibrium established by Him between cause 
and effect must be suspended to effect that purpose.” 

Though pressed by Madison and others to join the Gov- 
ernment Jefferson declined, feeling that the conduct of a 
war required the vigour and enterprise of younger heads. 
He urged his republican friends to rally to the support of 
the administration, though he did not agree with all its 
measures. In January, 1813, he repeats his opinion that 
“we ought to permit the exportation of grain to our ene- 
mies,” since it was impossible to starve Great Britain by 
withholding supplies; “and if she is to be fed at all events, 
why may we not have the benefit of it as well as others? 
. . . And as to feeding her armies in the Peninsula, she is 
fighting our battles there, as Bonaparte is on the Baltic. 
. . . Besides, if we could by starving the English armies 
oblige them to withdraw from the Peninsula it would be 
to send them here; and I think we had better feed them 
there for pay than feed and fight them here for nothing. 
A truth too not to be lost sight of is that no country can 
pay war taxes if you suppress all their resources.” Here 
was another moral and economic reductio ad absurdum of 
war; and Jefferson might have added that many of Na- 
poleon’s soldiers were clothed by British manufacturers. 


[ 466 | 


The Madison Administrations 


During the spring and summer of 1813 Jefferson was 
paying particular attention to the political economy and 
finance of war. On the theoretical side he was attracted 
by a manuscript work on political economy sent him from 
France by Destutt Tracy. He wrote to Duane to arrange 
for its translation and publication in the United States. 
It was, he admitted, a little too abstract for some readers. 
Tracy was the writer referred to by Bonaparte in address- 
ing his Council of State, when he described popular notions 
of government as “‘the dark and metaphysical doctrine of 
ideology.” But Jefferson was an ideologist, believing that 
correct theory, alike in politics and economics, is necessary 
to sound practice. 

It was in the domain of paper money and public debt 
that Jefferson’s constructive criticisms were most useful. 
Here we may not only admire his fertility and vigour but 
claim originality for his contributions to the science of 
finance. No statesman of his time, not even Sir Henry 
Parnell, had a better understanding of the paper money 
abomination, or of the regulations necessary to restrain 
banks and treasuries in the issue of notes to serve as cur- 
rency. Nor will it be doubted after the experience of an- 
other century that Jefferson was on the side of the angels 
in the policy he developed for the redemption of public 
debt in time of peace, and in the proposals which he made 
for financing the war with England. His son-in-law, John 
W. Eppes, was a member of Congress and Chairman of 
the Finance Committee. To him therefore Jefferson ad- 
dressed himself in June, 1813, when Madison’s adminis- 
tration was itself in financial straits. “‘It is a wise rule,” 
-he wrote, “‘and should be fundamental in a government 
disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to re- 
strain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, never 


[ 467 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant 
for paying the interest annually and the principal within 
a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to the 
creditors on the public faith. On such a pledge as this, 
sacredly observed, a government may always command 
on a reasonable interest all the lendable money of their 
citizens, while the necessity of an equivalent tax is a salu- 
tary warning to them and their constituents against op- 
pressions, bankruptcy, and its inevitable consequence, 
revolution.”’ 

The term of redemption, he added, should be within 
the limit of the government’s rightful powers, these 
limits being prescribed by the laws of nature, which for- 
bid society to create a perpetual debt. For ‘‘the earth 
belongs to the living and not to the dead.”” Each genera- 
tion may be considered as a corporation which enjoys 
during its continuation the usufruct of the earth. When 
one generation passes away, the usufruct should pass to 
the other free and unincumbered. ‘‘We may consider 
each generation as a distinct nation, with a right by the 
will of its majority to bind themselves, but none to 
bind the succeeding generations more than the inhabit- 
ants of another country.” For this he found a legal 
illustration, likening it to the ordinary case of a tenant 
for life, who may hypothecate the land for his debts 
during the continuance of his usufruct; but at his death 
the reversioner receives it exonerated from all burthen. 
Jefferson determined the length of a generation by the 
laws of mortality. Taking Buffon’s tables he found that 
of the adult citizens living at a given moment one-half will 
be dead in eighteen years and eight months. “At nineteen 
years then from the date of a contract the majority of the 
contractors are dead and their contract with them.” By 


[ 468 | 


The Madison Administrations 


way of illustration he takes the State of New York, and 
supposes that a majority of its inhabitants on January 1, 
1794, borrowed a sum of money equal to the fee simple 
value of the state and consumed it in eating, drinking, 
and making merry; “‘or, if you please, in quarrelling and 
fighting with their unoffending neighbours.” Nineteen 
years later a new majority have arrived on the scene with 
new rights. Are they bound to acknowledge the debt, and 
to allow that the preceding generation had a right to eat 
up the whole soil of their country and alienate it to credit- 
ors? And ought they to consider themselves legally or 
morally bound to give up their country and emigrate to 
another? Jefferson replies: “‘Everyone will say No; 
that the soil is the gift of God to the living, as much as it 
has been to the deceased generation, and the laws of na- 
ture impose no obligation on them to pay this debt.” Al- 
though, like some other natural rights, this law had not 
yet been promulgated, yet it ought to be acted upon by 
honest governments. It would serve at the same time as 
a salutary curb on the spirit of war, which since the modern 
theory of the perpetuation of debt “‘has drenched the 
earth with blood and crushed its inhabitants under bur- 
dens ever accumulating.” It was much in this spirit that 
Disraeli once denounced “‘ Dutch finance,” and that Glad- 
stone described taxation as an instrument imposed by the 
Almighty to curb the warlike passions of nations and to 
induce them to exchange war for peace. Had this prin- 
ciple been declared in the British Bill of Rights, wrote 
Jefferson, ““England would have been placed under the 
happy disability of waging eternal war and of contracting 
her thousand millions of public debt.” 

Applying these thoughts to the present emergency he 
points out that Madison’s government has not yet begun 


[ 469 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


to act on the rule of loans and taxes going hand in hand. 
A loan had been issued without any redeeming tax. Con- 
gress should now set the example by appropriating a tax 
to the service of the loan sufficient to pay the interest an- 
nually and to pay off the principal within nineteen years. 
“T hope yourself and your Committee will render the im- 
mortal service of introducing this practice. ...1 am 
sorry to see our loans begin at so exorbitant an interest.1 
And yet even at that you will soon be at the bottom of 
the loan bag.”” He reminds Eppes that the nation was an 
agricultural one which employed its savings in buying and 
improving land. Its lendable money was mostly in the 
hands of trustees. In such a nation there was only one 
resource for loans sufficient to carry it through the ex- 
pense of a war. This resource or fund was the mass of 
circulating coin. Unfortunately this resource had been 
fooled away by the States “‘to swindlers and shavers under 
the cover of private banks.” In the war of 1755 the State 
of Virginia had availed itself of this fund by issuing a paper 
money “bottomed on a specific tax for its redemption, 
and to insure its credit bearing an interest of five per cent.” 
The device was successful, and the State paper thus safe- 
guarded never depreciated a single farthing. Jefferson 
contrasts this with the ruinous paper money finance 
adopted by the old Congress and the States during the 
Revolutionary war. 

He proposes as a remedy that the States should be asked 
to transfer the right of issuing circulating paper to Con- 
gress, in order that this sole resource for loans in an agri- 
cultural country might be recovered for the use of the 
nation. This fund he thought “would always be sufficient 
to carry us through any war; provided that in the interval 


1 Six per cent. 


[ 470 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


between war and war all the outstanding paper should be 
called in, coin be permitted to flow in again, and to hold 
the field of circulation until another war should require 
its yielding place again to the national medium.” 

How clearly Jefferson envisaged the situation, and how 
thoroughly he had mastered the subject, appears from his 
conclusion, which might well have been written by a cur- 
rency expert surveying Europe after the war of 1914-18: 
“Private fortunesin the present state of our circulation are 
at the mercy of those self created money lenders, and are 
prostrated by the floods of nominal money with which 
their avarice deluges us. He who lent his money to the 
public or to an individual before the institution of the 
United States Bank twenty years ago, when wheat was 
well sold at a dollar the bushel, and receives now his nomi- 
nal sum when it sells at two dollars, is cheated of half his 
fortune; and by whom? By the banks, which since that 
have thrown into circulation ten dollars of their nominal 
money where was one at that time.” 

In a later letter to Eppes after entering into remedies, 
and surveying the authorities, he deals with the pretended 
scarcity of money and the consequences of emitting fur- 
ther large issues. After explaining the quantitative theory 
of money — which means in brief, that if you double the 
amount of money in a country you halve its value — he 
points out the enormous advantages of specie over paper 
as a medium of exchange: ‘“‘being of universal value it 
will keep itself at a general level flowing out from where 
it is still high to parts where it is lower.”” Paper money is 
of local value only. If there is too little of it, gold and 
silver may flow in to supply the deficiency; but if there 
is too much it accumulates, banishes gold and silver from 
circulation and depreciates itself. Adam Smith had ad- 


[ 471 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


mitted that the commerce of a country, when suspended 
by the ‘Daedalian wings’ of paper money, cannot be 
so secure as on the solid ground of gold and silver. Esti- 
mating the annual produce of the United States at 300 
millions of dollars, Jefferson takes thirty-five millions as 
the amount required for currency, which would be mid- 
way between Adam Smith’s minimum of one-thirtieth and 
his maximum of one-fifth. But he thinks that the proper 
amount might be much less; for in June, 1775, the old 
Congress (after a long and able discussion) estimated that 
their two millions of people would require two millions of 
dollars, and accordingly issued that amount of paper cur- 
rency. On this estimate eight millions of people would 
now require eight millions of dollars. But Jefferson calcu- 
lated that, while their proper circulation would be any- 
where from 8 to 35 millions of dollars, the actual circula- 
tion at that moment was 200 millions —to which it 
had been proposed to add ninety more to relieve the 
great scarcity of money! During a similar inflation in 
Scotland, after a period of overtrading, Adam Smith had 
explained how speculators, who had over borrowed, com- 
plained of the ‘contracted views’ and ‘dastardly spirit’ 
of the bank directors whose prudent and necessary caution 
seemed to be causing distress in the country. “The banks, 
they seem to have thought, could extend their credit to 
whatever sum might be wanted without incurring any 
other expense besides that of a few reams of paper.”” Nor 
did Jefferson fail to notice John Law’s opinion that the 
industry of Scotland languished for want of money to em- 
ploy it; and he mentioned Law’s plan of remedying this 
want of money by issuing paper to the amount of the 
whole value of the land of Scotland —a project which 
afterwards took shape in the Mississippi scheme, and 


[ 472 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


wrecked not only the public treasury of France but thou- 
sands of private fortunes. When Hamilton funded the pub- 
lic debt they had heard much about a public debt being a 
public blessing; as if the stock created represented active 
capital for the aliment of commerce and industry. ‘‘This 
paradox was well adapted to the minds of believers in 
dreams, and the gulls of that time entered Jona fide into 
it. But the art and mystery of banks is a wonderful im- 
provement on that. It is established on the principle that 
private debts are a public blessing.” 

After some further analysis Jefferson felt himself war- 
ranted in affirming that the new theory of private debts 
being a blessing was as ridiculous as the old one. The truth 
is, as he pointed out, “‘that capital may be produced by in- 
dustry and accumulated by economy; but jugglers only 
will propose to create it by legerdemain tricks with paper.” 
It was also contended by the inflationists that the paper 
currency then circulating in America was “as good as sil- 
ver,’ because people might have silver for it at the banks 
where it was issued. Jefferson shows that this was not so. 
In the first place the reservoirs of specie in the vaults 
of the banks were much too small to redeem the paper, 
which had already depreciated to about half its pre- 
war value. In the second place the banks were far 
away from most of those who used the bank paper. “A 
farmer having a note of a Boston or Charleston bank, 
distant hundreds of miles, has no means of calling for the 
cash.”” As for the townsmen they dared not inconven- 
ience or offend the banks by asking for cash, because they 
were mostly on the books of the banks and were there 
on “‘sufferance only and during good behaviour.” What 
would be the effect of adding ninety millions more to the 
circulation? If they proceeded on this mad career, their 


[ 473 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


money must infallibly end where the Revolutionary paper 
money ended. Altogether the old Congress had only 
printed two hundred million paper dollars when their bills 
ceased to circulate. “‘We are now at that sum, but with 
treble the population and of course a longer tether. Our 
depreciation is as yet but about two for one. Owing to 
the support its credit receives from the small reservoirs of 
specie in the vaults of the banks, it is impossible to say at 
what point their notes will stop. Nothing is necessary to 
effect it but a general alarm; and that may take place 
whenever the public shall begin to reflect on and perceive 
the impossibility that the banks should repay this sum.” 
He supposes that a panic may arise when the circulation 
reaches three hundred millions. There would then bea run 
on the banks. Their notes would be refused. Cash would 
be demanded. The banks would declare insolvency and 
close their doors. In the scramble of creditors the country- 
men would get nothing, the townsmen but little. Thus a 
sum would be swindled from the citizens seven times the 
amount of the real debt, and four times the amount of 
the fictitious debt of the United States at the close of the 
war. 

To sum up: their aim should be to restore a metallic 
currency which will preserve its own level, and ‘‘can never 
die in our hands”’ because it has an intrinsic and universal 
value. Specie money is also the surest resource in time of 
war. “‘The trifling economy of paper as a cheaper medium, 
or 1ts convenience for transmission, weighs nothing in op- 
position to the advantages of the precious metals.”’ An 
inconvertible paper currency, he adds, is not only liable 
to be abused, but always has been and always will be 
abused in every country where it is permitted. France 
was a terrible warning, and the United States was already 


[ 474 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


in danger. ““No man knows what his property is now 
worth. . . . It is a palpable falsehood to say we can have 
specie for our paper whenever demanded. Instead then 
of yielding to the cries of scarcity of medium set up by 
speculators, projectors, and commercial gamblers, no en- 
deavours should be spared to begin the work of reducing 
it by such gradual means as may give time to private for- 
tunes to preserve their poise and settle down with the sub- 
siding medium.” 

It would be difficult to overpraise the penetration and 
sagacity of Jefferson’s letters to Eppes. His admoni- 
tions were not wholly in vain. In the summer of 1814 
specie payments had to be suspended; the notes of the 
State Banks fell to a heavy discount; and the Treasury 
was at its wits’ end. However, the right course was taken 
at last. Additions were made to the internal revenue taxes, 
and it was found possible to float another large loan of 
twenty-five million dollars. After the war was over new 
taxes were devised, and another loan, this time at seven 
per cent, was issued. In 1816 the second Bank of the 
United States was founded to reorganize the currency. It 
was unfortunate that Madison and his second Secretary 
of the Treasury, Dallas, who had succeeded Gallatin, were 
not so well instructed as Jefferson in the science of money. 
But on the subject of the debt at any rate Madison 
and Monroe followed his principles, and the debt con- 
tracted in the War with England was paid off within a 
Jeffersonian generation. By the year 1835 the whole pub- 
lic debt of the United States had been extinguished. 

As the war dragged on Jefferson was more and more 
worried by its miserable results and by gloomy anticipa- 
tions of a financial catastrophe. Ardently as he longed for 

peace he was restrained by loyalty to the Republican gov- 


[475 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


ernment and by fear that failure to win the war, or any- 
thing like a stalemate settlement, might put the Federal- 
ists in power and enable them to give an oligarchic or even 
a monarchical turn to the Constitution. His letters reflect 
varying moods of optimism and despondency. A military 
success revives his hopes of capturing Canada. A defeat 
elicits well-founded complaints of mismanagement, incom- 
petent officers, and undisciplined militia, though he never 
blamed the President. Towards the end of the war, when 
the banks became insolvent, the Administration and Con- 
gress at last began to attend to his wise counsels. But 
enormous losses had been suffered, and Jefferson felt that 
his own estates had been irretrievably damaged. He had 
justified the war on the ground of British impressments. 
But at last he was too thankful to have peace to complain 
that the question, for which war had been continued, re- 
mained unsettled, or that the American commissioners, in- 
cluding the fiery but ineffective Clay, accepted the status 
quo. He found however some consolation in the thought 
that American privateers had taken more British ships dur- 
ing the war than were captured by the British during the 
whole period of the Orders in Council. The lesson at least 
might be salutary, and the rapid growth of American 
manufactures might teach Englishmen the unwisdom of 
antagonizing their best customers. 

His letters to Madison and Monroe, who both sought 
his advice at various stages of the contest, are admirable 
in temper. There is no fault-finding, even after the hu- 
miliating failure to defend Washington. As the war drags 
on, he insists over and over again that it can only be won 
by a drastic reorganization of the militia and by a restora- 
tion of the public finances. He shows how this may be 
done, and how the war could be supported for years with- 


[ 476 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


out depreciating the currency. Though financial troubles 
press hard upon him, he meets them with philosophic for- 
titude, and his letters reflect the marvellous versatility 
and activity of his powers. 

Among his interests old and new Spain had always 
held a prominent place. He felt sure that Spanish 
America would be able to assert its independence; but, 
as history furnished no example of a priest-ridden people 
maintaining a free civil government, he feared that the 
new Spanish republics would end in civil despotisms. To 
a Spanish Don, who sent him some pamphlets towards 
the end of 1813, he expressed the opinion that Spain’s 
divorce from her dependencies was not only unavoidable, 
but would prove a great blessing. An independent friend- 
ship secured by ties of consanguinity, language, religion, 
manners, and habits would certainly lead to a profitable 
commerce, if instead of pursuing the policy so unwisely 
practised by Great Britain towards her revolted colonies, 
Spain would extend to hers affection, aid, and patronage. 
By those means she would weave a bond of indissoluble 
union. In the spring of 1814 camea copy of the new Span- 
ish constitution, which he read with considerable satisfac- 
tion until he came to the words: “‘The Roman Catholic 
religion, the only true one, is and always shall be that of 
the Spanish nation. The government protects it by wise 
and just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other 
whatever.” About the same time (April 19, 1814) an ac- 
quaintance in Philadelphia got into trouble for a French 
work on the creation of the world which was thought dis- 
respectful to the book of Genesis. Jefferson, who had re- 
ceived a copy, and had noticed that the Newtonian phi- 
losophy seemed the chief object of attack, thought that 
Newton “‘and still less the holy author of our religion”’ 


[477] 


Thomas Jefferson 


needed the protection of the American authorities, and 
wondered if some American clergyman and ministers 
would not have liked to adopt as an amendment to their 
own constitution the Spanish article, striking out the 
term Roman Catholic and inserting that of their own sect. 
In spite of the general progress of enlightenment our 
sage might have discovered, had he lived another hun- 
dred years, with no little amazement, that even in the 
United States there are still Partingtons of both sexes 
who would brush back the tide of evolutionary science 
from the tender minds of students in schools and uni- 
versities.? 

Students of our legal history, now enriched by the 
learned and acute researches of Maitland and Pound, 
should not forget that Jefferson was an early labourer in 
their fields. In 1814 we find him corresponding with Dr. 
Thomas Cooper and others on the origins of English law. 
He urged his friend, a learned lawyer and a stalwart re- 
publican, who had suffered imprisonment under the Sedi- 
tion laws, to prepare a translation of Bracton, whose De 
Legibus Angliae written a few years after the Magna 
Charta “‘gives us the state of the Common Law in its 
ultimate form and exactly at the point of division between 
the common and statute law.”” Bracton and King Alfred’s 

1 Mrs. Partington was immortalised by Sydney Smith in 1831 when the 
British Die Hard Tories were trying to stop the irresistible progress of the re- 
form movement. In the winter of 1824, he said, in the little seaside town of 
Sidmouth the tide rose to an incredible height, and the waves rushed in upon 
the houses. “‘During this sublime storm Dame Partington, who lived upon the 
beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her 
mop, squeezing out the sea water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic 
Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington’s spirit was up. But I 
need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic beat Mrs. Par- 
tington. She was excellent for aslop or a puddle, but should never have meddled 


with a tempest.” 
[ 478 ] 


Se 4 - 


The Madison Administrations 


Code, it. will be remembered, had been a favourite study 
of Jefferson’s when he was in George Wythe’s chambers 
at Williamsburg. But Bracton’s Latin was so antiquated, 
obsolete, and unintelligible that only a learned lawyer 
could understand it without a good English translation 
and commentary. In one of these letters to Cooper 
(January 16, 1814) he speaks of the “long and lingering 
decline of William and Mary.” Should his scheme of a 
new university of Virginia be adopted by the legislature 
he hopes it may offer a professorship worthy of Cooper’s 
acceptance; and “it might produce too a bidder for the 
apparatus and library of Dr. Priestley, to which they might 
add mine on their own terms.” 

Jefferson also sought to interest Cooper and John 
Adams, who dearly loved a controversy, in his favourite 
argument against the doctrine of Hale, Blackstone, and 
Mansfield that Christianity was part and parcel of the 
laws of England. For the edification of Adams he quoted 
with evident relish the Blue Laws of Connecticut, which 
laid it down “that the laws of God should be the laws of 
their land, except where their own contradicted them,” 
adding that this was a proposition which “‘I dare say, our 
cunning Chief Justice [John Marshall] would swear to, 
and find as many sophisms to twist it out of the general 
terms of our declaration of rights, and even the stricter 
text of the Virginia act for the freedom of religion, as he 
did to twist Burr’s neck out of the halter of treason.” ! 
At the end of 1813 Dr. Walter Jones, who was writing 
about American parties, asked Jefferson what he thought 
about the part played by George Washington. To a 
good republican there was something painful and per- 
plexing in Washington’s ‘coalition’ with the Federalists. 

1 January 24, 1814. 


[ 479 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


Jefferson did not agree that the topic was a ‘perilous’ 
one, or that they should allow the Federalists to make 
a party figure out of anational hero. ‘I think,’ he wrote, 
on January 2, 1814, ‘I knew General Washington inti- 
mately and thoroughly; and were I called on to delineate 
his character, it should be in terms like these.’ , 

In the character which follows Jefferson’s insight and 
sympathy are revealed with all the delicacy and skill of a 
great literary artist. Asarule his prose is not quite of the 
first rank. But in this study he executed a literary mas- 
terpiece worthy to be compared with the best work of 
Clarendon and far excelling all other contemporary por- 
traits of Washington. We are all familiar with the pane- 
gyric, which leaves us wondering whether its subject 
possessed any human frailties. Jefferson’s judgment is 
magnanimous; but his admiration is discriminating; 
there are lights and shades; the analysis is true to life; 
it is criticism — not merely an éloge; the reader feels 
that this is the real Washington, whom Jefferson knew 
and understood. The whole is too long for quotation; 
but an extract will serve our purpose : — 


“His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first 
order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, 
Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. 
It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, 
but sure in conclusion. . . . He was incapable of fear, meeting per- 
sonal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest 
feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every cir- 
cumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining 
if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his 
purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, 
his justice the most inflexible I have ever known; no motives of inter- 
est or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his 
decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, 


[ 480 ] 


The Madison Administrations 


and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high toned; 
but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascend- 
ancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tre- 
mendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honourable, but exact; 
liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning 
and unyielding on all visionary projects, and all unworthy calls on his 
charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly 
calculated every man’s value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned 
to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one 
would wish, his deportment easy, erect, and noble; the best horseman 
of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. 
Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved 
with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents 
were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, 
nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, 
he was unready, short, and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather 
diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by con- 
versation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing, 
and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. 
His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only 
in agriculture and English history. . . . On the whole, his character 
was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and 
it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more 
perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constella- 
tion with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting 
remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit, of leading 
the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the 
establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through 
the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had 
settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obey- 
ing the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which 
the history of the world furnishes no other example.” 


As for Washington’s views about forms of government 
Jefferson denies that he had any preference for monarchy. 
On the contrary he held ‘correct views of the rights of 
man’; he ‘considered our new constitution as an experi- 
ment on the practicability of republican government, 


[ 481 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for 
his own good’; nay, ‘he was determined the experiment 
should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of 
his blood in support of it.?- On the other hand Washing- 
ton had no firm confidence in the durability of the new 


American constitution, being ‘naturally distrustful of 


men and inclined to gloomy apprehensions.’ So long as 
Jefferson remained in his Cabinet ‘our intercourse was 
daily, confidential, and cordial’; but later on the federal 
monarchists took pains ‘not entirely without effect, to 
make him view me as a theorist, holding French prin- 
ciples of government, which would lead infallibly to 
licentiousness and anarchy.’ 

At this time Jefferson and Adams were reading an im- 
mense biography, rich in episodes and digressions, “of 
our good and really great Rittenhouse.” If the history of 
the world were written on the same scale, Jefferson re- 
marked, the whole world would not hold it. Rittenhouse 
was a good astronomer and unequalled in his time as a 
mechanician; “‘but placed alongside of Newton” by his 
overzealous biographer “‘every human character must 
appear diminutive, and none would have shrunk more 
feelingly from the painful parallel than the modest and 
amiable Rittenhouse.” 

The news of the fall of Napoleon and his retreat to Elba 
provoked Jefferson to much the same reflections in prose 
which are so splendidly embodied in Byron’s Ode: — 

“The Desolator desolate! 
The Victor overthrown! 


The Arbiter of others’ fate! 
A Suppliant for his own!” 


Jefferson cries (to John Adams, July 5, 1814): “‘The Attila 
of the age dethroned, the ruthless destroyer of ten millions 


[ 482 ] 


> 2 ae tage 





The Madison Administrations 


of the human race . . . the great oppressor of the rights 
and liberties of the world, shut up within the circle 
of a little island of the Mediterranean, and dwindled 
to the condition of an humble and degraded pen- 
sioner on the bounty of those he has most injured. 
How miserably, how meanly, has he closed his inflated 
career!” 

In September, 1814, the raid on Washington and the 
total failure of the defence filled Jefferson with indignation 
and humiliation — indignation at the vandalism which had 
destroyed the public library, and humiliation that with a 
militia system and an immense potential army America 
was unable to defend its capital. His explanation was 
that “our men are so happy at home that they will not 
hire themselves to be shot at, at a shilling a day.” To 
repair the loss of the public library he immediately offered 
his own. 

In administering consolation to poor Madison after the 
British raid on Washington, he must have strained his 
allegiance to truth in the interest of friendship; for he 
wrote: ‘In the late events at Washington I have felt so 
much for you that I cannot withhold the expression of 
my sympathy. For although every reasonable man must 
be sensible that all you can do is to order; that executions 
must depend on others, and failures be imputed to them 
alone, yet I know that when such failures happen they af- 
flict even those who have done everything they could to 
prevent them. Had General Washington himself been 
now at the head of our affairs the same event would prob- 
ably have happened.”’ 

To Monroe, who had just accepted the War Depart- 
ment, he expressed his regret at the change. No one 
would conduct it better, but it would involve a personal 


[ 483 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


sacrifice ; for “‘ were an angel from heaven to undertake that 
office all our miscarriages would be ascribed to him” :— 


“Raw troops, no troops, insubordinate militia, want of arms, want 
of money, want of provisions, all will be charged to want of manage- 
ment in you. I speak from experience when I was Governor of Vir- 
ginia. Without a regular in the state, and scarcely a musket to put 
into the hands of the militia, invaded by two armies, Arnold’s from the 
seaboard, and Cornwallis’s from the southward, when we were driven 
from Richmond and Charlottesville, and every member of my Council 
fled from their homes, it was not the total destitution of means, but the 
mismanagement of them which in the querulous voice of the public 
caused all our misfortunes. It ended indeed in the capture of the whole 
hostile force, but not till means were brought us by General Washing- 
ton’s army and the French fleet and army; and although the legislature, 
who were personally intimate with both the means and measures, ac- 
quitted me with justice and thanks, yet General Lee has put all those 
imputations among the romances of his historical novel, for the amuse- 
ment of credulous and uninquisitive readers.” } 


Young George Ticknor of Boston — an American Bos- 
well who travelled after celebrities and recounted his finds 
with modest gusto in a most agreeable Journal — visited 
Monticello at the beginning of February, and jotted down 
some impressions which will be recorded in our next 
chapter. A week or two later came the joyful news of 
peace with England. Fortune had played at the end of 
the war, as at the beginning, one of her mischievous pranks 
with Time. After peace was signed at Ghent, but before 
the news had sailed across the Atlantic, the capture of 
Washington was avenged at New Orleans, where Paken- 
ham, a Peninsula veteran, fell with many of his men in 
an attack on the American position. In virtue of this 
post pacem triumph Andrew Jackson, the hero of the com- 
bat, was destined to create a new type of President, at 


1 January 1, 1815. 


[ 484 | 


The Madison Administrations 


which not only the moneyed worldling and the cultivated 
prig, but all who looked for taste, dignity, and modera- 
tion in their chief magistrate, would stand aghast. 

How did Jefferson receive the news? After the éclat of 
New Orleans he thought that another campaign would 
have planted their standard on the walls of Quebec and 
another on those of Halifax. 

“But peace is better for us all; and if it could be followed by a cor- 
dial conciliation between us and England, it would insure the happiness 
and prosperity of both. The bag of wind however, on which they are 
now riding, must be suffered to blow up before they will be able soberly 
to settle on their true bottom. If they adopt a course of friendship 
with us, the commerce of 100 millions of people, which some now born 
will live to see here, will maintain them forever as a great unit of the 
European family. But if they go on checking, irritating, injuring and 
hostilizing us, they will force on us the motto Carthago delenda est, 
and some Scipio Americanus will leave to posterity the problem of 


conjecturing where stood once the ancient and splendid city of 
London!” 


This will recall Macaulay’s later and more famous fancy 
of the traveller from New Zealand, who might one day in 
the midst of a vast solitude take his stand on a broken 
arch of London bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s. 
But Jefferson hoped that the good sense of both parties 
would concur in travelling rather along the paths of peace, 
of affection, and reciprocations of interest. “The bag of 
wind” collapsed quickly enough, after one more great 
triumph for the English nation at Waterloo. Seventeen 
long, miserable years of commercial depression and 
political repression were to elapse before the British Re- 
formers triumphed and so paved the way for free trade. 
But by the time England had opened her markets to 
America, America was beginning to close hers against 


Britain. 
[ 485 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


During the uncertainty which followed Napoleon’s 
return from Elba Jefferson’s opinions fluctuated between 
detestation of the Continental despot and a fear lest 
Britain, tyrant of the seas, with France at her feet, might 
become more intolerant and dangerous than ever. But 
he hoped she would change. ‘There is not a nation on 
the globe with whom I have more earnestly wished a 
friendly intercourse on equal conditions.” Only fools, 
or those who thought him a fool, could represent him 
personally as an enemy to England. He was an enemy 
to the flagitious principles of her administration and for- 
eign policy; but if she would give morality a place in her 
political code, or at least exercise neutral passions towards 
America, ‘“‘there is not, I repeat it, a people on earth with 
whom I would sacrifice so much to gain friendship. They 
can do us as enemies more harm than any other nation, 
and had the war continued, they would have reduced us 
to the inability to command a single dollar.’”’ So he 
wrote in March to his old friend Caesar Rodney. 

In the same month Madison sent him in proof a pam- 
phlet on the causes and conduct of the war, desiring his 
opinion. Jefferson urged that it should be published, first 
in order to give the Continent of Europe a true idea of the 
American character, and to show the peoples that peace 
and happiness are preferable to that false honour which 
kept Europe in eternal war and want; secondly, to unde- 
ceive the people of England as to the true causes of the 
war; for they thought “it was entirely wanton and wicked 
on our part and under the order of Bonaparte.” Thus 
the pamphlet would tend to that conciliation which is 
absolutely necessary to the peace and prosperity of both 
nations. Thirdly, it would enlighten their people at home, 
who had been “so plied with false facts and false views 


[ 486 | 





i A a eee 


The Madison Administrations 


by the Federalists that an impression has been left that 
all has not been right.”” At the same time there were some 
irritating epithets in the pamphlet which he would like to 
see removed in order to avoid offence. ‘‘A soothing post- 
script,” he thought, “‘addressed to the interests, pros- 
pects, and the sober reason of both nations, would make 
it acceptable to both.” 

During the summer some of his republican friends took 
the side of Napoleon and hailed his return from Elba with 
delight. One fanatical correspondent declared that he 
was the religious instrument of the unseen hand. Jef- 
ferson did his best to restrain this misguided exuberance. 
On hearing of Bonaparte’s second abdication he rejoiced 
that the representatives of the people had deposed him. 
The French nation was now free to give itself a good gov- 
ernment either with or without a Bourbon. 

Though he was afraid that France might be plundered 
and robbed by the Allies, he expressed strong hopes that 
the nations of Europe, hitherto in slavery, had “‘descried 
through all this bloody mist a glimmering of their own 
rights,” and that their tyrants would now have to concede 
more moderate forms of government. In any case Amerti- 
cans must exercise patience and forbearance. “For 
twenty years to come we should consider peace as the 
summum bonum of our country.” 

Jefferson’s idea of temperance was to substitute beer and 
wine for spirits. Toa friend in the Virginian legislature 
he recommends (January, 1816) a settler who wanted to 
establish a brewery in the county of Albemarle. Beer, he 
hoped, might take the place of whiskey, “which kills one- 
third of our citizens and ruins their families.”” If so, America 
at that time was not quite the Eldorado which Jefferson 

usually represented it to bein hisletters to foreign friends ; 


[ 487 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


nor is the next paragraph a very cheerful one: “Like a 
dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded 
citizens are clamouring for more banks, more banks. . . . 
We are under the bank bubble as England was under the 
South Sea Bubble. . . . Confidence is already on the 
totter, and every one now handles this paper as if playing 
at Robin’s alive.’’ His remedy was to suppress the paper 
money by degrees. 

Of his life at this time we have a glimpse in a letter to 
his old friend, Charles Thompson, Secretary of the Ameri- 
can Congress from 1774 to 1789: — 


“T retain good health, am rather feeble to walk much, but ride with 
ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback, and every three or 
four months taking in a carriage a journey of ninety miles to a distant 
possession where I pass a good deal of my time. My eyes need the aid 
of glasses by night, and with small print in the day also; my hearing 
is not quite so sensible as it used to be; no tooth shaking yet, but shiv- 
ering and shrinking in body from the cold we now experience, my ther- 
mometer having been as low as 12 degrees this morning. My greatest 
oppression is a correspondence afflictingly laborious, the extent of which 
I have been long endeavouring to curtail. This keeps me at the drudg- 
ery of the writing table all the prime hours of the day, leaving for the 
gratification of my appetite for reading, only what I can steal from the 
hours of sleep. Could I reduce this epistolary corvée within the limits 
of my friends and affairs, and give the time redeemed from it to reading 
and reflection, to history, ethics, mathematics, my life would be as happy 
as the infirmities of age would admit, and I should look on its consum- 
mation with the composure of one ‘qui summum nec metuit diem nec 
optat.’”’ 


The rest of his correspondence during this last year of © 


Madison’s administration reflects the happier conditions 
of peace, and the busy leisure of a full mind, always ready 
and eager in spite of his complaints about the epistolary 
corvée to help friends, acquaintances, strangers in their 
quest for knowledge and advice. At one time we find him 


[ 488 ] 


ee Ge 


The Madison Administrations 


explaining to Benjamin Austin why the free trader of 
1785 rejoices that domestic manufactures have now freed 
the United States from dependence on a foreign power, 
though he foresees that the tariff question may recur again, 
as indeed it did before the end of his life. At another time 
to a Maine schoolmaster, who asks for some fragment of 
morality which may incite his students to the pursuit of 
virtue, he sends the fine lines of Horace: — 


“Quisnam igitur liber? Sapiens, sibi qui imperiosus: 
Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent: 
Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores 
Fortis, et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus.” ! 


Then a friend from North Carolina asks where the leg- 
islature should go for a statue of General Washington 
which it wished to set up in the Capitol. Jefferson’s 
answer shows what an expert he was in this branch of art. 
For the marble they must go to Carrara; for the artist 
to old Canova of Rome, for thirty years without a rival 
in Europe. “He draws his blocks from Carrara, and de- 
livers the statue complete and packed for transportation 
at Rome. As to the price, we gave Houdin at Paris one 
thousand guineas for the one he made for this state; but 
he solemnly and feelingly protested against the inade- 
quacy of the price, and evidently undertook it on motives 
of reputation alone.”” As to the costume it should be 
Roman. ‘‘Our boots and regimentals have a very puny 
effect.” Rome was cheaper than Paris and he thought 
they would have a good bargain from Canova at $7000 or 
$8000. As to the model they should rely on Ciracchi’s 


1From the Satires; Book II. 7:— ‘Who then is free? The sage who 
rules himself; whom neither poverty nor death nor chains affright; strong 
enough to resist passion and despise honours; complete in himself, well rounded 


and polished.” 
| 489 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


bust, and a sketch taken from one of the full-length por- 
traits of Washington. 

In the early months of 1816 Jefferson discussed in 
correspondence with Noah Worcester, an early advocate 
of peace, the question whether nations ever obtain re- 
dress of wrongs by war, and with Monroe the question 
whether the United States should assist the South 
Americans to assert their independence. Not, he thought, 
by war; at least not yet; though interest on the whole 
would wish their independence “‘and justice makes the 
wish a duty.” They had aright to be free “and we a right 
to aid them.” 

Returning to the question of Napoleon and the infatua- 
tion of even good republicans over a hero whose downfall 
they thought calamitous to the cause of liberty, Jefferson 
points out that because Napoleon was an enemy of Eng- 
land, he was not necessarily a friend of liberty or of Amer- 
ica. “In fact, he saw nothing in this world but himself, 
and looked on the people under him as his cattle — beasts 
for burden and slaughter.’’ As for the French “their 
present sufferings will have a term. His iron despotism 
would have had none. France has now a family of fools 
at its head, from whom — whenever it can shake off its 
foreign riders — it will extort a free constitution, or dis- 
mount them and establish some other on the solid basis 
of national right. To whine after this exorcised demon 
is a disgrace to republicans, and must have arisen either 
from want of reflection, or the indulgence of passion 
against principle.” He felt so strongly about it that he 
consented to allow his opinions to be published in the 
press. 

Two quite heavy tasks which he undertook in the spring 
were an elaborate and very able report on an astronomical, 


[ 490 | 





The Madison Administrations 


geometrical, topographical, and mineralogical survey of 
Virginia for his friend the then Governor, Wilson C. Nicho- 
las; and a revision of the long-delayed translation of 
Tracy’s elementary book on Political Economy, to which 
he prefixed an introduction. These tasks completed he 
needed a little recreation, and made a trip to Bedford with 
Ovid, Cornelius Nepos, and Virgil for companions. 

Baron Grimm’s Memoirs in fifteen volumes had just 
come out, and old John Adams, who was devouring them 
with avidity, asked Jefferson whether he had known him 
at Paris." Yes, “was the ‘reply,’ “most intimately))He 
was the pleasantest and most conversable member of the 
diplomatic corps while I was there; a man of good fancy, 
‘acuteness, irony, cunning, and egoism. No heart, not 
much of any science, yet enough of every one to speak its 
language. His forte was belles-lettres, painting, and sculp- 
ture. In these he was the oracle of society, and as such 
was the Empress Catherine’s private correspondent and 
factor.”’ Although he never heard Grimm express a direct 
opinion on religion, he always supposed him to be of the 
atheistic school of Diderot and D’Holbach. “It was a 
numerous school in the Catholic countries, while the in- 
fidelity of the Protestants took generally the form of 
Theism.” A most acute remark, which might have been 
illustrated by such examples as Bolingbroke, Hume, and 
Tom Paine. 

In August, when John Adams teased him with the ques- 
tion whether he would agree to live his seventy-three years 
over again, he hesitated to say whether he would care to 
live beyond sixty, though he still enjoyed good health; 
but added humorously: “‘ Perhaps however, I might accept 
of time to read Grimm before I go. Fifteen volumes of 
anecdotes and incidents, within the compass of my own 


[491 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


time and cognizance, written by a man of genius and taste, 
of point, an acquaintance, the measure and traverses of 
whose mind I know, could not fail to turn the scale in 
favour of life during their perusal. I must write to Ticknor 
to add it to my catalogue and hold on till it comes.” By 
this time he was again bubbling over with optimism 
about his own country: ‘‘We are destined to be a bar- 
rier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old 
Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble 
along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests 
and kings as she can. What a Colossus shall we be when 
the Southern continent comes up to our mark. ... I 
like the dreams of the future better than the history of the 
past — so good night!.I will dream on, always fancying 
that Mrs. Adams and yourself are by my side marking the 
progress and the obliquities of ages and countries.” 

A few days afterwards to a lady who had heard a ru- 
mour of his conversion he wrote: “My opinion is that 
there would never have been an infidel if there had never 
been a priest.” 

The style and vigour of these letters leave no doubt 
that, whatever he may have said about decay in passing 
moods, Jefferson’s mind was in perfect vigour; indeed 
he never wrote better. 

Just before the end of Madison’s administration his 
successor, James Monroe, the last of the Virginian Dy- 
nasty, then Secretary of State, asked advice about an in- 
scription on the restored Capitol at Washington. Two 
were proposed. Jefferson said they were too long. If any 
were needed, it should be: ‘Founded 1791, burnt by 
a British army 1814, restored by Congress 1817.” But he 
questioned whether there should be one at all. With the 
prospects now opening of peace in the republic of nations, 


[ 492 | 


a ee Se 


The Madison Administrations 


should they do anything to perpetuate hatred against 
England? “Should we not on the contrary begin to open 
ourselves to other and more rational dispositions ?”” Wise 
men in England and America would begin to think of the 
interests of both countries, and Jefferson thought it would 
be better “‘to prepare the minds of our citizens for a 
corresponding change of dispositions by acts of comity 
towards England rather than by commemoration of 
hatred.” He felt sure too that the British government 
and constitution would soon be reformed. ‘‘ Were they 
once under a government,” so he wrote to Adams, “‘ which 
should treat us with justice and equity I should myself 
feel with great strength the ties which bind us together 
of origin, language, laws, and manners; and I am per- 
suaded the two peoples would become in future, as it was 
with the ancient Greeks, among whom it was reproachful 
for Greek to be found fighting against Greek in a foreign 
army.” 

With these noble sentiments, prophetic of the future, we 
may fitly pass to the era of good will, as Monroe’s adminis- 
tration has been called. But first let us pause to take a 
look at Monticello, its gardens and its library. 


[ 493 | 


CHAP TERE 


MONTICELLO AND ITS LIBRARY 


“And our own dear Monticello: where has nature spread so rich 
a mantle under the eye? Mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what 
majesty do we there ride above the storms! How sublime to look down 
into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thun- 
der, all fabricated at our feet! And the glorious sun when rising, as if 
out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, and giv- 
ing life to all nature.” To Mrs. Cosway, 1786 

“All my wishes end, where I hope my days will end, at Monticello. 
Too many scenes of happiness mingle themselves with all the recollec- 
tions of my native woods and fields, to suffer them to be supplanted in 
my affection by any other.” To Georce GILMER, 1787 


T is fashionable nowadays to affix tablets to houses 
where famous men are known, or supposed, to have 
lived, and even to convert them into shrines where 

their memories may be cherished and relics of their deeds 
preserved. The instinct is natural and laudable. We are 
grateful for the patriotism which has saved the house of 
Shakespeare, of Sir Walter Scott, of George Washington. 
If a hero deserves to be worshipped, his home deserves to 
be maintained. And there are some houses so interwoven 
with a noble life, so beautiful in themselves, so laden 
with history, that it were a national crime to let them 
perish in decay. America has just become aware that 
Monticello is one of her national treasures. Mount Ver- 
non does not tell us more of Washington than Monticello 
of Jefferson. 


[ 494 ] 


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Monticello and Its Library 


For a glimpse of Monticello at the height of its fame we 
are indebted to George Ticknor, the young Bostonian, 
who, luckily, wrote an account of his first visit to Jefferson 
while the impressions were still fresh. ‘‘We left Charlottes- 
ville,” he says, “‘on Saturday morning, the 4th of Feb- 


ruary [1815], for Mr. Jefferson’s”’ : 

“He lives you know on a mountain which he has named Monti- 
cello. ... The ascent of this steep, savage hill was as pensive and 
slow as Satan’s ascent to Paradise. We were obliged to wind two thirds 
round its sides before we reached the artificial lawn on which the house 
stands; and when we had arrived there we were about six hundred 
feet, I understand, above the stream which flows at its foot. It is an 
abrupt mountain. The fine growth of ancient forest trees conceals its 
sides and shades part of its summit. The prospect is admirable... . 
The lawn on the top was artificially formed by cutting down the peak 
of the height. In its center and facing the south east Mr. Jefferson has 
placed his house, which is of brick, two stories high in the wings, with 
a piazza in front of areceding center. You enter by a glass folding-door 
into a hall which reminds you of Fielding’s ‘Man of the Mountain’ by 
the strange furniture of its walls. On one side hang the head and horns 
of an elk, a deer, and a buffalo; another is covered with curiosities 
which Lewis and Clark found in their wild and perilous expedition. 
On the third . . . was the head of a mammoth, or, as Cuvier calls it, 
a mastodon, containing the only os frontis, Mr. Jefferson tells me, that 
has yet been found. On the fourth side, in odd union with a fine paint- 
ing of the Repentance of Saint Peter, is an Indian map on leather of the 
southern waters of the Missouri, and an Indian representation of a 
bloody battle, handed down in their traditions. 

Through this hall — or rather museum — we passed to the dining 
room, and sent our letters to Mr. Jefferson, who was of course in his 
study. Here again we found ourselves surrounded with paintings that 
seemed good.” 


They had hardly time to glance at the pictures before 
their host entered. Ticknor was astonished at the dignity 
of his appearance and the ease and grace of his manners. 
As dinner time approached, Jefferson took his guests to 


[ 495 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


the drawing room, ‘“‘a large and rather elegant room 
twenty or thirty feet high, which with the hall I have 
described composes the whole centre of the house from 
top to bottom. The floor of this room is tesselated. It is 
formed of alternate diamonds of cherry and beech, and 
kept polished as highly as if it were of fine mahogany.” 
Here were the best pictures of the collection — the 
Laughing and Weeping Philosophers dividing the world 
between them; the earliest navigators to America, Co- 
lumbus, Americus Vespuccius, Magellan, etc., copies from 
the originals in the Florence gallery. Then there was 
Madison in the plain, quaker-like dress of his youth, La- 
fayette in his Revolutionary uniform, and Benjamin 
Franklin. In conversation Ticknor was impressed by 
Jefferson’s love of paradox, his discursive manner, his 
fondness for American antiquities, and his love of old 
books and young society. 

Goldsmith makes Squire Hardcastle say to young Mar- 
low and Hastings when they mistook his house for an inn, 
“This is Liberty Hall, gentlemen; you may do just as 
you please here.” Jefferson was equally easy with his 
guests; but everything at Monticello went with clock- 
work regularity. At eight o’clock, writes Ticknor, the 
first bell is rung in the great hall, ““and at nine the second 
summons you to the breakfast room, where you find every- 
thing ready”: — 

“After breakfast everyone goes, as inclination leads him, to his 
chamber, the drawing-room, or the library. The children retire to the 
school room with their mother; Mr. Jefferson rides to his mills on the 
Rivanna, and returns at about twelve. At half past three the great bell 
rings, and those who are disposed resort to the drawing-room, and the 
rest go to the dining room at the second call of the bell, which is at four 


o’clock. The dinner is always choice, and served in the French style; 
but no wine was set on the table till the cloth was removed. The ladies 


[ 496 | 


Monticello and Its Library 


sat until about six, then retired, but returned with the tea-tray a little 
before seven, and spent the evening with the gentlemen; which was 
always pleasant, for they are obviously accustomed to join in the con- 
versation, however high the topic may be. At about half past ten, 
which seemed to be their usual hour of retiring, I went to my chamber, 
found there a fire, candle, and a servant in waiting to receive my orders 
for the morning, and in the morning was waked by his return to build 
the fire.” 


On Sunday morning after breakfast Jefferson took 
Ticknor into the Library, where the Bostonian spent 
many hours, and saw some of the curiosities. ‘This col- 
lection of books,” he says, “now so much talked about,} 
consists of about seven thousand volumes, contained in a 
suite of fine rooms; and is arranged in the catalogue and 
on the shelves according to the divisions and subdivisions 
of human learning by Lord Bacon.” He was shown “The 
Book of Kings,” consisting of several volumes of regal 
scandal, such as the Trial of the Duke of York. They 
“seemed to be favourites with the philosopher, who 
pointed them out to me with a satisfaction somewhat in- 
consistent with the measured gravity he claims in relation 
to such subjects generally.” There was indeed a “breath- 
ing of notional philosophy” in Mr. Jefferson —in his 
dress, his house, his conversation — which puzzled the 
primness of a New Englander. Ticknor wondered how a 
person of such eminence and fine manners could wear 
sharp-toed shoes and a red plush waist-coat. They would 
have been laughed at in Boston. 

Ticknor does not mention — probably he was not shown 
— the ‘Jefferson Bible’, then an octavo of 46 pages. Its 
title page — in Jefferson’s handwriting — runs: — ‘The 
Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth extracted textually 
from the gospels in Greek, Latin and English.’ During 


1 Congress was just then wrangling over the purchase of Jefferson’s library. 


[ 497 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


the winter of 1816-17 Jefferson enlarged his little treasury 
of Christian morals to 83 pages, and had it bound in red 
leather. The texts in the three languages are cut out and 
arranged in parallel columns. This so-called ‘Jefferson 
Bible’ passed into the possession of Sarah N. Randolph. 
After her death in 1895 it was sold by her sister to the 
United States National Museum at Washington, and a 
facsimile edition of g00o copies was printed by order of 
Congress. Jefferson was in the habit of reading his 
anthology before going to bed. ‘A more beautiful or 
precious morsel of ethics,’ he wrote to a friend, ‘I have 
never seen; it is a document in proof that J am a real 
Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of 
Jesus.’ 

A day or two later the time came to leave, and their 
host seemed surprised. Evidently he had counted on their 
staying a week; but though he urged them to remain a 
little longer it was ‘‘not in an oppressive way, but with 
kind politeness.”’ On finding his guests resolved to go 
“he bade us farewell in the heartiest style of southern 
hospitality. . . . I came away almost regretting that the 
coach returned so soon, and thinking with General Ham- 
ilton that he was a perfect gentleman in his own house.” 

A calamity befell the estate during Ticknor’s visit. 
One morning, when Jefferson came back from his ride, he 
said very quietly that the dam had been carried away the 
night before. “‘From his manner I supposed it an affair 
of small consequence; but at Charlottesville on my way 
to Richmond I found the country ringing with it. Mr. 
Jefferson’s great dam was gone, and it would cost $30,000 
to rebuild it.” 

Monticello, be it remembered, was not merely Jeffer- 
son’s home but Jefferson’s creation. He was its architect 


[ 498 ] 


Monticello and Its Library 


and master builder. He had chosen the site. He was the 
landscape gardener who had laid out the grounds, the 
botanist who had selected and planted the flowers, shrubs, 
and trees. 

Another cultivated traveller, Francis Hall, an English 
Lieutenant, who visited Monticello a year or two later, has 
also left us a pleasant account of his experiences. Jef- 
ferson entertained him with an unabated flow of conversa- 
tion on the most interesting topics, and walked round the 
grounds showing his pet trees and improvements : — 


“During the walk he pointed out to my observation a conical moun- 
tain, rising singly at the edge of the southern horizon of the landscape: 
its distance, he said, was forty miles, and its dimensions those of the 
greater Egyptian pyramid; so that it accurately represents the appear- 
ance of the pyramid at the same distance; there is a small cleft visible 
on its summit, through which the true meridian of Monticello exactly 
passes; its most singular property, however, is that on different occa- 
sions it looms, or alters its appearance, becoming sometimes cylindrical, 
sometimes square, and sometimes assuming the form of an inverted 
cone.” 


Jefferson discussed with philosophical courtesy the eco- 
nomic state of England and the likelihood of political re- 
form. Hall was enchanted : — 


“T slept a night at Monticello, and left it in the morning, with such 
a feeling as the traveller quits the mouldering remains of a Grecian 
temple, or the pilgrim a fountain in the desert. It would indeed argue 
a great torpor, both of understanding and heart, to have looked without 
veneration and interest on the man who drew up the Declaration of 
American Independence, who shared in the councils by which her free- 
dom was established; whom the unbought voice of his fellow-citizens 
called to the exercise of a dignity, from which his own moderation im- 
pelled him, when such an example was most salutary, to withdraw; 
and who, while he dedicates the evening of his glorious days to the pur- 
suits of science and literature, shuns none of the humbler duties of pri- 
vate life; but, having filled a seat higher than that of kings, succeeds 


[ 499 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


with graceful dignity to that of the good neighbour, and becomes the 
friendly adviser, lawyer, physician, and even gardener of his vicinity.” 


The early history of Monticello has been told in pre- 
vious chapters. After his return from France, where he 
had studied French and Roman architecture, and from his 
visits to some of the famous English parks and gardens, 
Jefferson began to remodel Monticello on more strictly 
classical lines. In 1911 Mr. Thomas Jefferson Coolidge 
had the good fortune to discover a bundle of Jefferson’s 
architectural drawings. They were presented to the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, and were used by Dr. 
Fiske Kimball in his beautiful volume Thomas Fefferson, 
Architect, published recently by the Riverside Press. 
These sketches and designs exhibit Jefferson’s skill in 
draughtsmanship, his creative power, and the infinite 
pains he took to acquire mastery of his favorite art. 
“They are of a number and elaborateness,” writes Dr. 
Kimball, “unexampled in America until long after- 
wards : — 


“Nowhere else can the mental processes of an early American 
architect and the inner development of his designs be followed so 
closely... . In the pervasive classical revival common to Europe and 
America, of which Jefferson’s work forms a part, it will be found that 
his position was not always derivative and secondary, in comparison to 
European standards, but that in certain respects he anticipated corre- 
sponding buildings in other countries, and in some other directions 
gave to American architecture an original direction.” 


His master almost from the beginning was Palladio; 
but Monticello is a Jeffersonian conception, in which many 
models are assimilated. Stanford White, the architect of 
some later additions to the University of Virginia, was an 
enthusiastic admirer of Monticello, whose every propor- 
tion and detail, he declared, are perfect. 


[ 500 ] 


Monticello and Its Library 


Another competent admirer, Dr. William A. Lambeth, 
calls Monticello “the first born of Jefferson’s architectural 
children, the most ingenious, and in many respects the 
most difficult.” It was “a step forward in the art of 
home building.” Earlier Virginian builders had disfig- 
ured their Colonial houses by crowding round them offices 
for the conduct of a planter’s business, and shops for 
weaving, dyeing, distilling, wagon-making, etc. Jefferson 
concealed these woeful uglinesses to preserve the amenities 
of his home. In the mansion itself ‘“‘dish-washers and 
cooks, butlers and maids came quietly through concealed 
passages . . . they ascended and descended stairs which 
had been cunningly tucked away in unobtrusive fashion.” 
A French nobleman of taste, the Marquis de Chastellux, 
was so smitten with Monticello that he introduced a 
description of it into his book of travels. Mr. Jefferson, 
he proclaimed, “‘is the first American who has consulted 
the fine arts to find out how to shelter himself from the 
weather.” 

Jefferson was not only an architect; he was a landscape 
gardener, a learned botanist, an enthusiastic cultivator 
of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. On laying out his 
gardens and grounds he bestowed as much thought and 
pains as on building the house. A memorandum of “Gen- 
eral Ideas for the Improvement of Monticello,”’ which he 
set down in 1804, aims at eliminating from his pleasure 
grounds the aspect of a farm, “‘while retaining such 
profitable cultivation and use as this requirement would 
permit.” The upper part of the mountain was to be the 
pleasure ground or garden proper, with lawns and groves 
of tall trees, diversified by thickets, ‘“‘all so arranged as to 
give advantageous prospects” from the paths or round- 
a-bouts which circled the mountain. The lower slopes were 


[ sor | 


Thomas Jefferson 


to be converted into a park and riding grounds with the 
farm lands planted as orchards.1 In this memorandum 
Jefferson proposes that a spring on Montalto should either 
be brought to Monticello by pipes or should fall over 
steps in cascades made visible from the house through a 
vista. A fish pond was also to be constructed in sight of 
the house. Plantations of oaks, poplars, elms, maples, 
etc. were to be broken at intervals by clumps of thicket 
“as the open grounds of the English are broken by clumps 
of trees.’’ His favourite plants for these thickets were 
broom, guelder rose, magnolias, azaleas, dogwood, rho- 
dodendron, honeysuckle, and bramble. He thought too 
of recesses in which there might be constructed “‘a temple 
or seat.” 

We find that in 1812 one of these garden houses or 
temples was erected; but Jefferson’s dwindling financial 
resources were inadequate to carry out all the details of his 
ambitious plan, though small additions and improvements 
went on almost to the end. As he once said to a visitor: 
“architecture is my delight, and putting up and pulling 
down one of my favourite amusements.” 

No account of Monticello would be complete if the li- 
brary, selected and collected with no small care and ex- 
pense, were left out of the picture. It is a subject so little 
known that we shall pause to describe some of its features. 
Jefferson was more than a collector and reader of books. 
He was a scientific librarian. When President he took a 
keen interest in improving the Library of Congress, as 
appears from a letter he wrote to the Librarian, Abraham 
Baldwin, on April 14, 1802, enclosing a catalogue which he 
had prepared. After explaining the classes of books most 
useful to members of the legislature he winds up: — 

1See Fiske Kimball, Thomas Fefferson, Architect, p. 69. 


[ 502 | 


Monticello and Its Library 


“This catalogue, combined with what you may approve in those 
offered by others, will enable you to form your general plan and to select 
from it every year to the amount of the annual fund of those most 
wanting. 

I have omitted from it those which by the printed catalogue I find 
you already possess. In estimating the amount of an annual selection, 
folios may be stated as costing one and a half guineas, quartos a guinea, 
octavos, 12/—, twelvemos 4/— in England, and in France three-fourths 
of those prices, in neat but not splendid bindings.” 


Jefferson had thought of leaving his library to the Uni- 
versity of Virginia; but in August, 1814, when the British 
set fire to the Capitol, the Congressional Library, to which 
he had given many books, was almost wholly destroyed. 
A few weeks later (September 21) Jefferson offered his 
library to Congress on such terms as they might choose to 
fix. In the letter conveying this offer to his friend, 
Samuel Harrison Smith, he describes it as follows : — 


“You know my collection, its condition and extent. I have been 
fifty years making it, and have spared no pains, opportunity or ex- 
pense, to make it what it is. While residing in Paris, I devoted every 
afternoon I was disengaged, for a summer or two, in examining all the 
principal bookstores, turning over every book with my own hand, and 
putting by everything which related to America, and indeed whatever 
was rare and valuable in every science. Besides this, I had standing 
orders during the whole time I was in Europe, on its principal book- 
marts, particularly Amsterdam, Frankfort, Madrid and London, for 
such works relating to America as could not be found in Paris. So that 
in that department particularly, such a collection was made as prob- 
ably can never again be effected, because it is hardly probable that the 
same opportunities, the same time, industry, perseverance and expense, 
with some knowledge of the bibliography of the subject, would again 
happen to be in concurrence. During the same period, and after my 
return to America, I was led to procure, also, whatever related to the 
duties of those in the high concerns of the nation. So that the collec- 
tion, which I suppose is of between nine and ten thousand volumes, 
while it includes what is chiefly valuable in science and literature gen- 
erally, extends more particularly to whatever belongs to American 


[ 503 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


statesmen. In the diplomatic and parliamentary branches, it is par- 
ticularly full. ... I enclose you the catalogue, which will enable 
them to judge of the contents. Nearly the whole are well bound, abun- 
dance of them elegantly, and of the choicest editions existing.” 


To the President, James Madison, he wrote on Septem- 
ber 24: — 

“Learning by the papers the loss of the library of Congress, I have 
sent my catalogue to S. H. Smith, to make their Library Committee 
the offer of my collection, now of about nine or ten thousand volumes, 
which may be delivered to them instantly, on a valuation by persons 
of their own naming, and be paid for in any way, and at any term 
they please; in stock, for example, of any loan they have unissued, 
or of any they may institute at this session; or in such annual 
instalments as are at the disposal of the committee. I believe you are 
acquainted with the condition of the books, should they wish to be 
ascertained of this. I have long been sensible that my library would 
be an interesting possession for the public, and the loss Congress has 
recently sustained, and the difficulty of replacing it, while our inter- 
course with Europe is so obstructed, renders this the proper moment 
for placing it at their service.” 


On October 7 the offer was laid before the Senate, 
where political opponents at once began to raise objec- 
tions on the score of its cost, its extent, and its utility. 
Some complained that many of the books were in foreign 
languages and therefore useless to the average reader, 
others that it contained works of an atheistical and im- 
moral character, which might corrupt Congress. One 
member desired that the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and 
Locke should be returned to the owner. The newspapers, 
however, generally supported the purchase, poured ridicule 
on the narrow-minded legislators, and congratulated the 
country on the opportunity thus presented of acquiring 
“the finest library in America.” } 


1 Johnston’s History of the Library of Congress contains a good deal of infor- 
mation about Jefferson’s Library. 


[ 504 ] 


Monticello and Its Library 


Finally on January 30, 1815, after much wrangling, 
Congress agreed to purchase the whole collection of 6,500 
books ! for $23,950 “‘in Treasury notes,” and at the end 
of March the books were all catalogued, sealed up, and 
sent to Washington where they were housed in a wing of 
the Capitol building. It was a mean offer; for the orig- 
inal cost is said to have been at least double. But Jef- 
ferson accepted it without a murmur. 

Here the collection remained until December 24, 1851, 
when a fire broke out in the Library and consumed about 
two-thirds of Jefferson’s books. The remainder, some 
two thousand, are now housed in the Superintendent’s 
Office, a long narrow room off the General Reading 
Room of the Congressional Library, where they cover 
most of the three walls. In a letter to Congress, Decem- 
ber 25, 1851, the Librarian wrote that most of Jefferson’s 
books under the heads of moral philosophy, politics, 
history, and law had been saved. 

Under Politics and the Law of Nations the Librarian 
seems to have been too sanguine; for many important 
items are missing. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations has 
disappeared, and the whole of Locke’s works. From 
the Law division Blackstone and Coke are gone; but in 
the section on international law will be found two copies 
of Selden’s Mare Clausum. The entire collection of 
modern poets, playwrights, etc. was destroyed, most 
of his grammars and dictionaries and, sad to say, his geo- 
graphical collection, including many rare books and maps 
such as those which he consulted for his notes on the 
Louisiana purchase. 


1 Jefferson kept a number of duplicates and some others. He also replaced 
by purchases in Europe some of his favourite authors with the help of young 
Ticknor ‘‘the best bibliograph,” as he wrote, “I have ever met with.”’ He could 


not live without books. 
| [ 505 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


The remaining books are arranged on steel shelves rising 
from floor to ceiling. Many of them have been rebound; 
the originals are mostly in full calf bindings, with perhaps 
a dozen in vellum, including Erasmus, Epictetus, Boe- 
thius, and a volume of Machiavelli’s letters. Most of the 
books are in English, Latin, French, and Greek; but 
there are some also in Italian, Spanish, German, Norse, 
Gaelic, and Hebrew. 

I may here quote some notes made for me by a friend! 
who examined the collection : — 


Only two that I opened had ‘his name written in (Turgot and Epic- 
tetus); the others are all marked with his peculiar mark. Wherever 
the printer’s signature occurs at the bottom of the page as an IJ or J 
he has made a T. before it, and where T. occurs a J. after it; making 
the initials of his name. This occurs in nearly all his books. 

He rarely marked passages, and his books seem to have been care- 
fully handled. Some of them are presentation copies, among them 
Dugald Stewart’s Philosophy of the Human Mind, with a letter on the 
fly leaf dated Oct. 1, 1792 hoping that you “will do me the honour to 
give it a place in your library, and that you will accept of it as a mark 
of my grateful recollection of the attentions which I received at Paris.” 

The dates of publication of the books I saw range from 1497 to 
1812. The majority of his classics are sixteenth century editions, and 
included a beautiful Aldine Plutarch, 8 vols. folio, 1509, and a good 
many Aldine octavos. 


On the fly leaf of a Life of Homer (Thomas Blackwell, 
3d edition, London, 1759), Jefferson has written : — 


“A man who would enquire why . . . Homer existed at such a place, 
in such a time, would throw himself headlong into chimaera, and could 
never treat of such a subject without a multitude of false subtleties 
and refinements. He might as well pretend to give a reason why... 
Fabius came into the world before Scipio. For such incidents as those 
no other reason can be given but that of Horace: — 


1 Miss Lucy Wilcox, now Mrs. W. F. Adams. 
| 506 | 


Monticello and Its Library 


Scit genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum, 
Naturae deus humanae, mortalis in unum 
Quodque caput, vultu mutabilis, albus et ater.? 


A copy of Middleton’s Life of Cicero (London, 1741) 
is marked in a good many places with Jefferson’s charac- 
teristic 7/7. On page 7 he has marked the phrase “the more 
Greek they knew, the greater knaves they were.”’ Some 
marked passages in the first chapter recall an outline of 
study which he drew up for a young university student 
after he himself had left college. One sentence — “‘and 
never passed one day without writing and reading some- 
thing at home’ —is twice underscored. The copy of 
Stith’s History of Virginia contains many notes and 
corrections. 

The books are still arranged according to Jefferson’s 
classification, which was based on Bacon’s division of the 
faculties of the mind, and appears in the preface to the 
printed catalogue of his books. Jefferson’s method, with 
some few changes, was adopted for the whole Library of 
Congress and continued in use down to the end of the 
nineteenth century. W. D. Johnston, in his History of 
the Library of Congress remarks: ‘‘The system of 
classification was an innovation in the book world, which 
seems to have been appreciated by intelligent visitors to 
the Library.” 

To an explorer of Jefferson’s opinions the most interest- 
ing part of the collection is the section on Ethics, 210 
works, and on politics, about s00 works. The Ethics 


1 From Horace. Epistles II. 2. 187. Conington’s translation runs: — 
“None but he who watches them from birth, 
The genius, guardian of each child of earth, 
Born when we’re born and dying when we die, 
Now storm, now sunshine, knows the reason why.” 


[ 507 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


include Bolingbroke, Hutcheson, Hume, Condorcet, Spi- 
nosa, Kant (in a French translation), Seneca, Epictetus, 
etc., and nearly a score of books and pamphlets on negro 
slavery. In the political collection are found the writers 
who influenced Wythe and Jefferson, when Jefferson’s opin- 
ions were being formed by study and discussion at Williams- 
burg. Of these the most important are Harrington’s 
Oceana, Sydney’s Discourses on Government, Sir Robert 
Filmer’s Patriarcha (London, 1680), Locke, whose works 
are unfortunately missing, and Montesquieu. Among 
later works we notice Beccaria’s Crimes and Punishments 
and Bentham’s Panopticon. Among several passages 
marked in Filmer one is of particular interest, as it helps 
to dispose of the fanciful and erroneous theory that Jef- 
ferson was a disciple of Rousseau and borrowed from him 
the doctrine of natural rights. In this marked passage 
(on page 2 of the Patriarcha, written before Rousseau was 
born) Filmer observes that since School Divinity began to 
flourish a common opinion has been maintained which 
affirms that “‘mankind is naturally endowed and born 
with freedom from all subjection, and at liberty to choose 
what form of government it pleases; and that Power 
which any one Man hath over others was at first bestowed 
according to the discretion of the Multitude.” 

On page 4 Jefferson has marked the words “Natural 
Equality and Freedom of Mankind, and Liberty to choose 
what form of Government it please,” and again the fol- 
lowing sentence : — 


“yet all of them, when they come to the Argument drawn from the 
Natural Liberty and Equality of Mankind, do with one consent admit 
it for a Truth unquestionable, not so much as once denying it; whereas, 
if they did but confute this first erroneous Principle, the whole Fabrick 
of this vast Engine of Popular Sedition would drop down of itself.” 


[ 508 | 


Monticello and Its Library 


In Jefferson’s copy of Harrington’s Oceana there are 
only one or two typographical corrections. Harrington’s 
influence, as it seems to me, has been exaggerated. He 
was too much of a doctrinaire, and his book is too dull to 
attract practical reformers in a progressive age. But the 
Oceana has its place in the history of modern democratic 
institutions, especially in America. Though concerned 
with machinery it has behind it a moral and political 
purpose. Harrington, as Mr. G. P. Gooch has remarked, 
advocates the principle of rotation in office, because he 
believes in the inexhaustible supply of worthy and capable 
men ready to bear their part in the drama of Government. 
This belief, too often fallacious, was undoubtedly indulged 
by Jefferson, who held also with Harrington and Baxter 
that men are wise enough to choose the wise and good 
enough to choose the good. 

Of Algernon Sydney’s celebrated Discourses on Govern- 
ment — which supplied a good republican answer to Fil- 
mer’s monarchical doctrines — two editions have been 
saved from the fire. The one used and marked by Jef- 
ferson is the well-known folio (London, 1763), edited by 
Thomas Hollis, an English free thinker notorious in the 
middle of the eighteenth century for his republican opin- 
ions. Some of the passages marked by Jefferson are worth 
citing. He notes in the Contents of the Discourses: 
“the common notions of liberty are not from the school 
divines, but from Nature.” 

That his opinions were in the true line of democratic 
descent from Sydney will be evident, I think, from a few 
of the marked passages : — 


Section V. For, as liberty solely consists in an independency upon 
the will of another, and by the name of slave we understand a man, who 


[ 509 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


can neither dispose of his person nor goods, but enjoys all at the will of 
his master, there is no such thing in nature as a slave, if those men or 
nations are not slaves who have no other title to what they enjoy than 
the grace of the prince, which he may revoke whenever he pleases. 

Section VII. Just governments are established for the good of the 
governed. 

Section XXXI. And I say that nations, being naturally free, may 
meet, when and where they please; may dispose of the sovereignty, 
and may direct or limit the exercise of it, unless by their own act they 
have deprived themselves of that right; and there could never have 
been a lawful assembly of any people in the world, if they had not that 
power in themselves. 

Section XX XIII. If any man ask how nations come to have the 
power of doing these things, I answer that liberty being only an exemp- 
tion from the dominion of another the question ought not to be how a 
nation can come to be free but how a man comes to have dominion over 
it; for till the right of dominion be proved and justified, liberty sub- 
sists as arising from the nature and being of aman. ... Man there- 
fore must be naturally free, unless he be created by another power than 
we have yet heard of. 


Is it too strong an inference from these passages that 
they were the fountain from which Jefferson drew inspira- 
tion when he began to pamphleteer against English en- 
croachments on Colonial liberties ? 

We may guess that Jefferson’s advocacy of rapid rota- 
tion in office came from Harrington, but his obligations to 
Sydney are certain and unmistakable. When President, 
on June 11, 1807, he wrote to a correspondent: “I 
think there does not exist a good elementary work on the 
organisation of society into civil government; I mean a 
work which presents in a full and comprehensive view the 
system or principles on which such an organisation should 
be founded according to the rights of nature.” For want 
of a single work of that character he recommended Locke 
on Government, Sydney’s Discourses, an essay of Priest- 


[ 510] 


Monticello and Its Library 


ley’s, and the Federalist. To which he added Beccaria on 
Crime, Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and Say’s Political 
Economy. 

Political research is often employed in tracing the origin 
of a great statesman’s ideas; and such an enquiry is 
especially fruitful for the interpretation of Jefferson; 
for Jefferson from first to last was a student and a book 
lover, always seeking after Truth and Light, a theorist too, 
always in search of arguments and illustrations to support 
a democratic view of society. But let us beware of falling 
into the error so natural to explorers in this field, of sup- 
posing that every resemblance is proof of imitation or 
plagiarism. It was in this spirit that John Adams and 
‘others tried hard to show that Jefferson had borrowed 
the language and ideas of the Declaration of Independence 
from various writers great and small, eminent and obscure. 
Jefferson had much in common with Paine. But it would 
be wrong to say that Paine borrowed his ideas from 
Jefferson, or that Jefferson borrowed his ideas from Paine, 
or that both were servile copyists of Algernon Sydney. 

For a mind so strong, comprehensive, and original as 
that of Jefferson we neither require nor expect to find a 
prototype. He is a master, not a disciple, much as he 
loved his library, familiar as he was through books with 
past ages. Among his contemporaries he owed most 
perhaps to Dr. Small and George Wythe in his student 
days, and later on to Franklin, Priestley, and Madison. 

It would be hard to say whether he inherited more from 
books, or from conversation. But his mind assimilated 
and compounded until at last he formed a system of politi- 
cal philosophy peculiarly his own — Jeffersonian Democ- 
racy, which may be compared and contrasted with the 

philosophic radicalism of Bentham, with the Manchester 


[511] 


Thomas Jefferson 


School of Cobden, or with the doctrines of Turgot and the 
Encyclopedists. 

A stranger, to whom Jefferson had shown his library, 
published many years afterwards (in 1813) some hazy 
recollections of what he saw. One of the curiosities men- 


tioned was a volume of slanders composed of newspaper 


cuttings. Thereupon John Adams wrote to ask Jefferson 
about it. Jefferson replied that the statement was in- 
correct. Had he collected slanders, they would have made 
not a single volume but an encyclopedia : — 


“T never had such a volume. Indeed I rarely thought those libels 
worth the reading, much less preserving and remembering. At the 
end of every year I generally sorted all my pamphlets and had them 
bound according to their subjects. One of these volumes consisted of 
personal altercations between individuals, and calumnies on each other. 
This was lettered on the back Personalities, and is now in the Library 
of Congress.” 


Then he went on to mention a more agreeable pastime. 
“T was in the habit also, while living apart from my 
family, of cutting out of the newspapers such morsels of 
poetry, or tales, as I thought would please, and of sending 
them to my grandchildren, who pasted them on leaves of 
blank paper and formed them into a book.” ! 

Jefferson was a fairy godfather to the smaller members of 
his household. One of them, Virginia Trist, a great grand- 
child, wrote down some memoirs in 1839; and a few sen- 
tences from these may fitly conclude our chapter. She 
describes the game he arranged for them indoors and out- 
doors, and how when he went out to walk in the garden, 
the children raced after him. ‘He would gather fruit for 
us, seek out the ripest figs, or bring down the cherries 
from on high above our heads with a long stick, at the 


1To John Adams, February 25, 1823. 


[ 512 | 


_ — 


Monticello and Its Library 


end of which there was a hook and little net bag.” He 
combined the offices of handicapper, time keeper, and 
prize giver for races on the lawn and terrace. His in- 
genuity in devising presents and amusements for the 
children was endless. 

“On winter evenings, when it grew too dark to read, in 
the half hour which passed before candles came in, as we 
all sat round the fire, he taught us several childish games, 
and would play them with us. I remember that ‘Cross- 
questions,’ and ‘I love my love with an A,’ were two I 
learned from him; and we would teach some of ours to 
him. When the candles were brought, all was quiet imme- 
diately, for he took up his book to read; and we would 
not speak out of a whisper, lest we should disturb him; 
and generally we followed his example and took a book; 
and I have seen him raise his eyes from his own book, and 
look round on the little circle of readers and smile, and 
make some remark to mamma about it. When the snow 
fell, we would go out, as soon as it stopped, to clear it off 
the terraces with shovels, that he might have his usual 
walk on them without treading in snow.” 


[513 | 


CHAPTER III 


THE MONROE ADMINISTRATIONS — 1817 TO 1825 
ERA OF GOOD FEELING— FEFFERSON’S OLD AGE 


‘Here 
Is nature’s secretary, the philosopher 
And wily statesman.” 


E have seen how, on the eve of James Monroe’s 
\ | election to the Presidency, Jefferson had written 
to advise a change of policy towards England, acts 
of comity rather than commemorations of hatred. These 
seeds of good counsel fell on good ground, and on the 
whole Monroe’s two administrations from 1817 to 1825 
were correctly designated as ‘The Era of Good Feeling’ 
at home and abroad. The words, it appears, were first 
used by the Boston Sentinel in July, 1817, when the 
President’s visit to the fortress of Federalism was promot- 
ing good will and allaying the party passions which had 
been kindled by the fire and fury of the French Revolu- 
tion. The Federalists indeed must have felt that their 
day was over; for at the presidential election their candi- 
date, Rufus King, had received but 34 votes against 183. 
for Monroe. Only three states, Massachusetts, Connecti- 
cut, and Delaware, had chosen Federalist electors. And 
so it came about that with the subsidence of party 
conflict this phrase was generally adopted as the symbol 
of Monroe’s government. 


“Tis what our President Monroe 
Has called ‘the era of good feeling,’ ” 


[514] 





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The Monroe Administrations 


wrote Fitz-Greene Halleck, a popular poetaster of the day, 
in his 4/nwick Castle. 

James Monroe, last of the Virginian Dynasty, which 
had governed the United States with only one break since 
the adoption of the Constitution, and last President of 
the heroic age of Independence, was a Jeffersonian to his 
finger tips. By Jefferson’s favour he had risen in the war 
to the rank of Colonel. Under Jefferson’s guidance he 
had studied the law and embarked on a great career of 
public service as Senator, diplomatist, Secretary of State, 
and President. Jefferson loved him as an elder brother 
might love a younger committed to his charge. “A 
man whose soul might be turned wrong side outwards 
without discovering a blemish to the world,’ was his 
verdict on Monroe in 1786. The reader will remember 
how more than once he exerted himself to smooth the 
ruffed susceptibilities of Monroe, and especially when a 
rivalry for the presidency arose in 1808. “I have ever 
viewed Mr. Madison and yourself as two principal pillars 
of my happiness,” he wrote on that occasion; and great 
was his joy when a little later Monroe joined Madison’s 
administration as Secretary of State, and so qualified 
for the succession. Though he had not at first the same 
confidence in Monroe’s discretion and judgment which he 
reposed in Madison, he thought him ‘honest and brave,’ 
and praised his enterprise, firmness, industry, unceasing 
vigilance, and competence to embrace great views of 
action. He believed Monroe’s principles to be as truly 
republican as those of any man living, and in a letter to 
La Fayette described his election to the presidency as no 
ineficient circumstance in their felicities: “Four and 
twenty years which he will accomplish of administration 
in republican forms and principles will so consecrate them 


[515] 


Thomas Jefferson 


in the eyes of the people as to secure them against the 
danger of change. The evanition of party dissensions has 
harmonised intercourse and sweetened society beyond 
imagination.”’ A couple of years later he declared: “I 
have had, and still have, such entire confidence in the late 
and present Presidents that I willingly put both soul and 
body into their pockets.” 

From France Jefferson had written thirty years earlier 
a letter begging Monroe to settle in the neighbourhood of 
Albemarle, where he hoped also to have Short and 
Madison as neighbours. “This,” he wrote, “will be so- 
ciety enough, and it will be the great sweetener of our 
lives. Without society, and a society to our taste, 
men are never contented.” He hoped that Mrs. Monroe, 
a favourite at Monticello, would accept the testimony of 
one who had tried scenes of bustle and office that the dis- 
tractions of town life could bear no comparison with rural 
felicity. Eventually Monroe did settle 3 or 4 miles away 
at Ash Lawn; and all through his presidency the two 
friends were in constant and affectionate intercourse. Jef- 
ferson was well content to let the administration, whose 
foreign policy was ably conducted by the President and his 
experienced Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, pursue 
its own course. But he was often consulted; and on one 
or two critical occasions, as we shall see, there is corre- 
spondence to show how much his opinion was valued and 
how little his public spirit shumbered. Though the decline 
and fall of Federalism had left the Republican party su- 
preme, the absence of an efficient opposition tended to 
generate differences within the party itself and to mag- 
nify personal ambitions and factions. A school of loose 
constructionists arose in the Republican ranks, and carried 
through both Houses an Act for expending Federal money 


[ 516 | 


a 


The Monroe Administrations 


on roads, canals, and similar internal improvements. 
Monroe, with the approval of Jefferson, withheld his 
signature on the ground that a new power of such impor- 
tance should be provided for by an amendment to the 
Constitution; for if it were admitted under the general 
authority granted by the Constitution to “‘ provide for the 
general welfare,” there would be no limit to the encroach- 
ments of the Federal government on the functions re- 
served to the States. 

Jefferson’s correspondence from 1817 onward is as re- 
markable as ever for its variety. One of his correspondents 
sent him an extract from Wirt’s Life of Patrick Henry, 
which quoted Jefferson as saying that ‘‘Mr. Henry cer- 
tainly gave the first impulse to the ball of revolution.” 
Jefferson replied that he was speaking of the revolution in 
Virginia. The question who commenced the Revolution 
was as difficult to answer as the question who invented the 
steam boat, or who discovered the principle of gravity. 
In the case of the American Revolution “this question of 
priority is as the inquiry would be who first of the three 
hundred Spartans offered his name to Leonidas.”’ To this 
happy similitude we may add another from ancient 
Greece to illustrate the position in which Jefferson found 
himself, a position wholly unlike that ever occupied before 
or since by any retired American statesman. Monticello 
was to Americans as the oracle of Delphi had been to the 
Hellenes. To it pilgrims resorted from far and near — 
men of all creeds, and opinions. As a member of his 
household wrote years afterwards “some came from af- 
fection and respect, some from curiosity, some to give or 
receive advice or instruction, some from idleness, some 
because others set the example.” The pilgrimages to 
Hawarden Castle in Mr. Gladstone’s old age are the only 


[517] 


Thomas Jefferson 


parallel which presents itself; but there is this difference 
that the English statesman was not expected to entertain 
uninvited and often unknown guests. Once, it is recorded, 
no less than fifty were quartered on Monticello. Those 
who could not consult the oracle in person consulted 
him by letter. Thus early in 1818 a correspondent asked 
him for a plan of female education. Jefferson said it had 
never been with him ‘“‘a subject of systematic contem- 
plation.” It had occupied his attention only in connec- 
tion with the education of his own daughters, to whom 
he thought it essential to give “‘a solid education.” He 
regretted the inordinate passion then prevalent for novels, 
and wished that the time lost in that sort of reading might 
be better employed. ‘‘When this poison infects the mind, 
it destroys its tone, and revolts it against wholesome 
reading. Reason and fact, plain and unadorned, are re- 
jected. Nothing can engage attention unless dressed in all 
the figments of fancy, and nothing so bedecked comes 
amiss. The result is a bloated imagination, sickly judg- 
ment, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life.” 
He excepted from the general mass of trashy fiction some 
of Marmontel’s tales, the writings of Miss Edgeworth, and 
some of Madame Genlis. Among poets for the formation 
of style and taste he recommended Pope, Dryden, Thomp- 
son, Shakespeare, Moliére, Racine, and Corneille. French 
he held to be indispensable for both sexes. His female 
curriculum included dancing, drawing, and music. Danc- 
ing is recommended as a healthy and attractive exercise; 
drawing was, he thought, neglected in America; every 
girl who had an ear for music should study it. As for 
household economy, one of Jefferson’s remarks reminds 
us of Xenophon’s delightful homily to his young wife: 
“The order and economy of a house are as honourable to a 


[ 518 ] 


The Monroe Administrations 


mistress as those of the farm to the master, and if either 
be neglected, ruin follows and children destitute of the 
means of living.” ? 

“My repugnance to the writing table becomes daily 
and hourly more deadly and insurmountable,” he wrote to 
Adams in May, 1818. In place of this has come on a 
Canine appetite for reading. ‘‘And I indulge it, because 
I see in it a relief against the ftaedium senectutis; a 
lamp to lighten my path through the dreary wilderness 
of time before me, whose bourne I see not.’ He com- 
plains of losing interest in the world around him; but his 
letters and the testimony of his family and friends are 
conclusive evidence against him. His musings carry him 
far and wide. He reviews the past, scans the present, and 
peers into the future. The South Americans were then 
revolting against Spain. They would succeed, said Jef- 
ferson; but their more dangerous enemies were the igno- 
rance and superstition which would chain their minds and 
bodies under religious and military despotism. He hoped 
and believed they would obtain freedom by degrees. But 
who could say? “‘We shall only be lookers on from the 
clouds above, as now we look down on the labours, the 
hurry and bustle of the ants and bees.’”’ Perhaps in that 
supermundane region they two, Adams and Jefferson, 
might have cause to smile over their own bad guesses at 
the future and over the nothingness of labours which had 
filled and agitated their lives. 

Just before the end of the year he received with much 
satisfaction news that the soil of France had been liberated 
from occupation by the soldiers of the Allied powers. Her 
amended constitution, he thought, gave as much self- 
government to the people as they could bear until habits 


1 Jefferson to Nathaniel Burwell, March 14, 1818. 


[519 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


of order had prepared them to receive more. At the same 
time he rejoiced that Congress was reducing the duties 
on French wine, for wine was the only antidote to the 
bane of whiskey. When wine was as cheap as grog, 
who would not prefer it? The poison of whiskey was 
desolating American homes. “No nation is drunken 
where wine is cheap; and none sober where the dear- 
ness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common 
beverage.” 

Early in January, 1819, a correspondent asked him for 
some political advice. Jefferson replied that he did not 
know the facts. The only sheet he took was Ritchie’s, and 
of that he read chiefly the advertisements, as containing the 
only truths to be relied on in a newspaper! He professed 
far greater interest in the events of two or three thousand 
years ago than in current affairs. “‘I read nothing there- 
fore but of the heroes of Troy, of the Wars of Lacedemon 
and Athens, of Pompey and Cesar, and of Augustus too, 
the Bonaparte and parricide scoundrel of that day.” 
One contemporary mischief indeed he could not neglect 
“because it jostles me at every turn.” It was paper 
money. ‘‘ We have now no measure of value. I am asked 
$18 for a yard of broadcloth, which when we had dollars 
I used to get for 18 shillings.”” Thus industry was bilked 
of its honest earnings for the benefit of “‘swindlers and 
shavers,” who would close their careers by fraudulent 
bankruptcies. 

A pamphlet on the pronunciation of Greek reminded 
Jefferson of two learned modern Greeks whom he had met 
at Paris. From them he had acquired the modern pro- 
nunciation, but only accepted it with limitations; for 
“sound being more fugitive than the written letter we 
must after such a lapse of time presume in it some degener- 


[ 520 ] 


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acies, as we see there are in the written words.” He would 
have nothing to do with abandoning prosody: “‘against 
reading Greek by accent instead of quantity as Mr. 
Cicceicira [the author of the pamphlet] proposes I raise 
both my hands.” 

To a medico, who wanted to know how he preserved 
health and vigour, he gave about this time, March 21, 
1819, an account of his diet and habits of life: — 


“Like my friend the Doctor [Dr. Rush] I have lived temperately, 
eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a con- 
diment to the vegetables which constitute my principal diet. I double, 
however, the Doctor’s glass and a half of wine, and even treble it with 
a friend; but halve its effect by drinking the weak wines only. The 
ardent wines I cannot drink, nor do I use ardent spirits in any form. 
Malt liquors and cider are my table drinks, and my breakfast, like that 
also of my friend, is of tea and coffee. I have been blest with organs of 
digestion which accept and concoct, without ever murmuring, whatever 
the palate chooses to consign to them, and I have not yet lost a tooth 
by age. I was a hard student until I entered on the business of life, the 
duties of which leave no idle time to those disposed to fulfil them; and 
now, retired, and at the age of seventy-six, I am again a hard student. 
Indeed, my fondness for reading and study revolts me from the drudg- 
ery of letter writing. And a stiff wrist, the consequence of an early 
dislocation, makes writing both slow and painful. I am not so regular 
in my sleep as the doctor says he was, devoting to it from five to eight 
hours, according as my company or the book I am reading interests 
me; and I never go to bed without an hour or half hour’s previous read- 
ing of something moral, whereon to ruminate in the intervals of sleep. 
But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun. I use 
spectacles at night, but not necessarily in the day, unless in reading 
small print. My hearing is distinct in particular conversation, but 
confused when several voices cross each other, which unfits me for the 
society of the table.” 


He ascribed his exemption from catarrhs “partly to 
the habit of bathing my feet in cold water every morn- 
ing, for sixty years past.”’ He was too feeble, he added, 


[ 521 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


to walk much but rode “ without fatigue six or eight miles 
a day, and sometimes thirty or forty.” 

During the summer of 1819 he indulged some of his 
inquisitors with historical recollections of the American 
Revolution, and took pains to assure a New Englander 
that he had no wish as a Virginian patriot “to intercept 
the just fame of Massachusetts or the promptitude and 
perseverance of her early resistance.’”’ Among her heroes 
he paid special praise to Samuel Adams, “‘truly a great 
man, wise in counsel, fertile in resources, immovable in his 
purposes.”” One of his letters at this time (August 24) 
contains an eloquent argument in favour of the classics, 
which might be called in aid against our modern barba- 
rians. First, he said, the Greek and Latin languages are 
models of pure taste in writing; secondly, he put very high 
the luxury of reading the Greek and Roman authors in all 
the beauties of their originals, and thought himself more 
indebted to his father for having placed this luxury within 
his reach than for any of the other pleasures which he 
owed to his care and affection. Thirdly, he valued the 
stores of real science —of history, ethics, arithmetic, 
geometry, etc. deposited and transmitted to us in those 
languages. Then again the theologian finds in the Greek 
language his primary code, and the lawyer in Latin the 
system of civil law most conformable with the principles of 
justice. Even the physician must admit that his art had 
not much progressed since the days of Hippocrates. For 
the merchant, the agriculturist, and the mechanic he agreed 
that Latin and Greek were not necessary, but only an 
ornament and a comfort. They were however ‘‘a solid 
basis for most, and an ornament to all the sciences.” 

In September, which Jefferson spent at Poplar Forest, 
he read with approbation some pieces signed ‘Hampden,’ 


[ 522 ] 


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written by Judge Spencer Roane in criticism of John 
Marshall’s judicial interpretations of the constitution. 
But he went a good deal beyond ‘Hampden’; holding that 
each department, executive, legislature, and judiciary, was 
independent, and had an equal right to decide for itself 
what was the meaning of the constitution in the cases 
submitted to its action. By way of illustration he in- 
stanced his own action in releasing individuals imprisoned 
by the Federal courts under the Sedition Law, which he 
had treated as a law unauthorised by the constitution and 
therefore null. In the case of Marbury and Madison the 
Federal judges had declared that commissions signed and 
sealed by the President were valid though not delivered. 
*“I deemed delivery essential to complete a deed . . . and 
I withheld delivery of the commissions.” 

Towards the close of the year, when the paper money 
bubble burst, with disastrous results to the community, 
Jefferson turned aside from classics, philosophy, and agri- 
culture to formulate an ingenious plan for reducing the 
circulating medium and promoting the only sound remedy, 
that is to say a standard level of values which would coin- 
cide with the metallic medium and so be on a par with the 
money of Great Britain. But he was diverted from this 
inquiry to a much more alarming crisis which threatened 
to make an end to the Era of Good Feeling. On March 6, 
1818, a petition had come to Congress praying that Mis- 
souri might be admitted to the Union. In the following 
February a Bill was introduced into the House of Repre- 
sentatives authorising the people of Missouri to form a 
state; whereupon an amendment was moved by Tall- 
madge, a New York member, to provide that no more 
slaves should be introduced into Missouri and that all 
children born within the new state should become free at 


[ 523 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


the age of twenty-five. The debate on Tallmadge’s amend- 
ment let loose a fierce controversy between north and 
south, between emancipation and slavery, and between 
those who preferred peace and Union to war and scission. 
It went on for two years, and was postponed rather than 
settled by the famous Missouri compromise in March, 
1820, and by the admission of Missouri into the Union 
in March, 1821. It might have been supposed that the 
abolition of the foreign slave trade would have made the 
way easy for a general measure of emancipation, which 
would have fulfilled the hopes and carried out the earlier 
projects of Jefferson, Wythe, and other Virginian liberals 
in the early days of independence. Jefferson indeed was 
one of the few American statesmen who had endeavoured 
to provide a practical solution. In 1784 he was chairman 
of a Committee appointed by Congress to devise a plan 
of government for the Western territories above the paral- 
lel of 31 degrees N. Lat. embracing the territory which was 
afterwards converted into the states of Alabama, Missis- 
sippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The Report drafted by 
Jefferson (March 1, 1784) provided that “‘after the year 
1800 of the Christian era there shall be neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude in any of the said States.’ This 
admirable clause, which would have stopped the growth 
of the slave power and would almost certainly have ob- 
viated the Civil War, was lost by one vote. It is one of the 
tragedies of American history. As Jefferson himself wrote 
soon afterwards “‘the voice of a single individual... 
would have prevented this abominable crime from spread- 
ing itself over the new country. Thus we see the fate of 
millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and 
Heaven was silent in that awful moment! But it is to be 
hoped it will not always be silent, and that the friends to 


[ 524 ] 


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the rights of human nature will in the end prevail.” After 
this failure Jefferson had turned his attention to schemes 
for emancipating negroes and emigrating them to Sierra 
Leone, San Domingo, or one of the West Indian Islands. 
In 1805 he wrote to a friend to say that he had abandoned 
his hopes of any early provision for the extinction of do- 
mestic slavery; but after the foreign slave trade was 
prohibited in 1808, he thought that the diminishing value 
of slaves and sporadic insurrections in the South would 
gradually dispose the owners to abandon their human 
property. In this he was mistaken. Whitney’s invention 
of the cotton gin in 1793 soon made the cotton plantations 
of the South highly profitable, and almost all the cotton 
was cultivated by servile labour. Apart from domestic 
consumption the value of cotton exports had risen in 
1820 to nearly twenty million dollars, and the average 
value of a negro slave was said to have trebled since the 
beginning of the century. Naturally, as the value of their 
slaves rose, the slave owners of the South became less and 
less inclined to surrender their property to the philan- 
thropy of the north, which indeed at no time showed any 
disposition to provide equitable compensation after the 
example set by Great Britain in the West Indies. The 
furious tenacity with which the Southern Slave Power 
fought to establish the institution in Missouri astonished 
the people of the north. But it was a political question. 
The free states of the north were rapidly outpacing the 
slave states in wealth, power, and population. In 1790 
the population and representation in Congress of the two 
groups had been about equal. The census of 1820 prom- 
ised the north a preponderance ofsome thirty votes in the 
lower House, and the Southern politicians were therefore 
bent upon maintaining a political equilibrium in the 


[525] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Senate. Thus a struggle for more slave states was to them 
a struggle for political life. Here, as Carl Schurz points 
out,! lay the true significance of the Missouri Question. 
No debate on slavery, he wrote, had ever so stirred polit- 
ical passion : — | 

“The dissolution of the Union, Civil War, and streams of blood were 
freely threatened by Southern men, while some anti-slavery men de- 
clared themselves ready to accept all these calamities rather than the 
spread of slavery over the territories yet free from it. Neither was the 
excitement confined to the halls of Congress. As the reports of the 
speeches made there went over the land people were profoundly aston- 
ished and alarmed. The presence of a great danger, and a danger too 
springing from an inherent antagonism in the institutions of the coun- 
try, suddenly flashed upon their minds.” 


The Legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky and Maryland 
all pronounced for the admission of Missouri as a slave 
state. The Union was divided geographically on a deadly 
issue. 

Jefferson took alarm in December, 1819. In April he 
began to point out to his friends the real danger. The old 
schism of Federal and Republican mattered comparatively 
little, because it existed in every state and in fact united 
the states by the fraternity of party; but the coincidence 
of a moral principle with a geographical line he feared 
would never be obliterated; the controversy thus stirred 
would recur again and again until it kindled “‘such mutual 
and mortal hatred as to render separation preferable to 
eternal discord.” As for the cession of slave property no 
man would be more ready than he for any practical sacri- 
fice which would relieve the nation of this heavy reproach. 
But when the momentous question sounded “‘like a fire bell 
in the night,” it awakened and filled him with terror; for 


1 Life of Henry Clay, Chap. VIII. 
[ 526 | 


The Monroe Administrations 


it seemed to him “the knell of the Union.” The Com- 
promise ceded slavery to Missouri, but provided that in all 
the rest of the country sold by France to the United States 
north of 36 degrees and thirty minutes (this being the 
southern boundary of Missouri) there should be no slav- 
ery. Jefferson saw in this compromise “‘a reprieve only, 
not a final sentence.”’ Yet he thought the passage of slaves 
into Missouri would be no obstacle to emancipation, but 
would tend to facilitate its accomplishment by spreading 
the burden over a greater number of coadjutors. What he 
failed to see was that another extension of the domestic 
market might encourage the detestable industry of breed- 
ing slaves. The truth seems to be that a manifest 
danger to peace and to the Union overcoming all other 
considerations inclined him to palliate a lesser evil than 
war and procrastinate, in the hope that peaceful remedies 
would find favour. ‘“‘We have the wolf by the ears,” 
he wrote, “‘and we can neither hold him nor safely let him 
go. Justice in the one scale, and self preservation in the 
other.”’ Who can blame the veteran statesman if at the 
close of his life he was unwilling to imperil his country’s 
peace, his domestic happiness, his university, all that he 
loved and cared for, in order to cut off one small branch of 
the Upas Tree which all his life he had sought to eradicate 
by rational and pacific measures? 

In the summer of 1820 his Portuguese friend, Correa, the 
eminent botanist, who was about to leave for Brazil, paid 
a farewell visit to Monticello. They had many conversa- 
tions on the desirability of a cordial fraternisation among 
all the American nations, so that they might coalesce in an 
American system of policy totally independent of, and 
unconnected with, that of Europe. Recording these con- 
versations to his friend William Short, August 4, Jef- 


[ 527 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


ferson predicted a day not far distant “when we may 
formally require a meridian of partition through the ocean 
which separates the two hemispheres, on the hither side 
of which no European gun shall ever be heard, nor an 
American on the other.” 

Seeing that the principles of society in the Old and New 
Worlds were radically different he would aim at an agree- 
ment with the maritime powers of Europe which would 
leave to them the task of suppressing piracy in their own 
seas, while the American nations would undertake it in 
theirs. J hope, he added, ‘‘no American patriot will ever 
lose sight of the essential policy of interdicting in the seas 
and territories of both Americas the ferocious and san- 
guinary contests of Europe.” 

He had invited Monroe to make Monticello his head- 
quarters in the autumn for a meeting of the Board of 
Visitors which had been set up for the University. It is 
not clear whether Monroe actually stayed with him,! but 
towards the end of October Jefferson in the course of a 
letter to Correa on the prevalence of piracy in American 
waters wrote: “I had repeated conversations with the 
President on this subject while at his seat in this neigh- 
bourhood.” We shall see how less than three years later 
Jefferson’s inspiration was to find glorious fulfilment in the 
Monroe Doctrine, perhaps the most effective peace in- 
strument of the nineteenth century. 

All through 1820 and 1821 Jefferson was struggling hard 
for the University of Virginia in the teeth of persistent 
obstruction. Constitutional questions also claimed his 
attention. He denounced with just severity a mischievous 
law passed to vacate most of the executive offices of the 


1 One of the bedrooms at Monticello was called the Monroe room, another 
the Madison room, 
[ 528 | 


The Monroe Administrations 


government every four years, a law which he saw would 
increase intrigue and corruption, and would prove even 
more baneful than the old attempt of the Federalists to 
make all office holders irremovable without the consent of 
the Senate. This new law (which transferred many ap- 
pointments from the President to the Senate) would keep 
“all the hungry cormorants for office”’ in constant excite- 
ment, and would make placemen and place hunters alike 
sycophants to their senators. He thought the President 
must have signed the law without even reading it! Thus 
did Jefferson foresee and denounce beforehand that 
demoralising Spoils System which was to make the civil 
service of the United States for many years a byword for 
corruption and inefficiency. Here we have one of the fun- 
damental differences between Jeffersonian and Jacksonian 
democracy. 

Before the end of the year 1820 Jefferson’s fears about 
the Missouri Question had calmed down, and he ex- 
pressed confidence that the ship of state would ride safely 
over the Missouri wave as it had ridden over so many 
others. His last letter of the year was to William Roscoe 
of Liverpool. It shows that he was watching the gather- 
ing discontents and “the workings of hungry bellies” 
in the old country. But he was hopeful of reform and of 
a renewal of cordial relations between the two nations. 
That he cherished no enmities against Englishmen was _ 
shown by his plans for the University of Virginia. When 
the time comes to appoint professors, he said, “we shall 
apply for them chiefly to your island.” 

Early in the new year (1821) his grandson, Francis 
Eppes, asked the sage for his opinion of Lord Bolingbroke 
and Thomas Paine. Jefferson’s reply shows how much, 
-and why, he admired them both. Both he said were 


[ 529 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


bitterly hated by the priests and Pharisees of their 
day. Both were honest men, both advocates for human 
liberty : — 


“Paine wrote for a country which permitted him to push his reason- 
ing to whatever length it would go; Lord Bolingbroke in one restrained 
by a constitution and by public opinion. He was called indeed a Tory; 
but his writings prove him a stronger advocate for liberty than any of 
his countrymen, the Whigs of the present day. Irritated by his exile 
he committed one act unworthy of him in connecting himself momen- 
tarily with a Prince rejected by his country. But he redeemed that 
single act by his establishment of the principles which proved it to be 
wrong.” 


The verdict of history does not support Jefferson’s 
good opinion of Bolingbroke; but his comparison of Bol- 
ingbroke’s style with Paine’s is just to both writers : — 

“No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in 
perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and 
unassuming language. In this he may be compared with Dr. Franklin; 
and indeed his Common Sense was for a while believed to have been 
written by Dr. Franklin and published under the borrowed name of 
Paine, who had come over with him from England. Lord Boling- 
broke’s on the other hand is a style of the highest order — the lofty, 
rhythmical full flowing eloquence of Cicero; periods of just measure, 
their members proportioned, their close full and round. His concep- 
tions too are bold and strong, his diction copious, polished, and com- 
manding as his subject. His writings are certainly the finest samples 
in the English language of the eloquence proper for the senate.” 


The most timid religionist, he added, with a touch of 
irony, would find Bolingbroke’s political tracts safe read- 
ing; his philosophical ones were suited only ‘‘to those who 
are not afraid to trust their reasoning with discussions of 
right and wrong.” After writing thus freely in praise of 
the two most execrated writers of that age he appended a 
caution, lest his grandson should allow these remarks to 
find their way into the newspapers, and so raise up against 


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him an army of new enemies. It was a critical moment 
for the University of Virginia, and Jefferson had begun 
to fear that he would not live to see it opened. He must 
be careful not to give further provocation to the Presby- 
terians. Even if all the money he hoped for became avail- 
able (so he wrote to Cabell, January 31, 1821), they would 
be able to afford no more than six professors, while Harvard 
would still “prime it over us with her twenty.” But 
gloomy as the prospects were, when some of the best 
friends of the institution were deserting it, the old man 
declared that he would die in the last ditch rather than 
abandon his effort to bestow this “immortal boon” on 
his country. After all, he said, ‘the exertions and the 
mortifications are temporary, the benefits eternal.” 

At this time Sully, the portrait painter, was asked by 
the military academy of West Point to execute a portrait 
of Jefferson. Jefferson was ready to entertain the artist, 
but added that so fine a pencil would be ill employed “‘on 
an ottamy ! of seventy-eight,” and quoted Voltaire’s reply 
to a similar request that he should sit to a sculptor. A 
letter from his ancient enemy, Timothy Pickering, enclosing 
one of Dr. Channing’s discourses evidently gave Jefferson 
a good deal of pleasure. Pickering seems for a moment to 
have forgotten their political differences in religious agree- 
ment; for Jefferson’s reply indulges in his favourite hope 
that reason was progressing towards rational Christianity, 
and that “the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian 
arithmetic”? would soon be done away with. There is no 
doubt that at this time Unitarian doctrines were making 
many converts in the United States; but Jefferson — who, 
like most of us, was apt to think what he hoped — went 
far from the mark when he predicted to Pickering: “I 


1 Atomy or otomy was sometimes used a century ago for a walking skeleton. 


[531] 


Thomas Jefferson 


have little doubt that the whole of our country will soon 
be rallied to the unity of the Creator.”’ 

In the autumn Jefferson and Adams exchanged views on 
the probability of progress, and the possibility that civili- 
sation might slip back again into barbarism. Jefferson 
admitted that things looked bad in Naples, Piedmont, 
Spain, and Portugal; and he feared that the poor Greeks 
might only exchange the tyranny of the Sultan for the 
tyranny of the Czar. “Yet I will not believe our labours 
lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty 
are on steady advance.”’ Once indeed the light had been 
eclipsed for centuries by barbarism; but should the same 
northern hordes again swarm in upon civilisation “the 
art of printing alone, and the vast dissemination of books, 
will maintain the mind where it is, and raise the conquering 
ruffians to the level of the conquered, instead of degrading 
these to that of their conquerors.’ And even should 
barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and 
liberties of Europe, the United States would remain to 
preserve light and freedom and restore them to the old 
world. 

Congress, it appears, did not put quite so high a 
value on books and learning; for Jefferson was at this 
time exerting himself to procure the repeal of a customs 
duty which had been imposed on imported books. In a 
circular letter, to the Universities and colleges of the 
United States, he explained that the duties on imported 
books were fifteen per cent, “which by ordinary customs- 
house charges amount to about eighteen per cent and, 
adding the importing bookseller’s profit on this, become 
about 27 per cent.” The object of the duty was to en- 
courage the home manufacture of books, and also (appar- 
ently) to make piratical reprints of English authors 


[ 532] 


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profitable. But for poor scholars who wanted good modern 
editions of the classics the duty was not protective but 
prohibitive. He hoped that Congress might be converted 
to free trade in books, seeing that science is more impor- 
tant in a republic than in any other government, and that 
“to prohibit us from the benefit of foreign light is to con- 
sign us to long darkness.” 

In June he heard of another war in Europe, this time 
between Russia and Turkey. He hoped the United States 
would prove “how much happier for man the Quaker 
policy is,’ and how much better is the life of the feeder 
than that of the fighter. “Let us milk the cow, while 
the Russian holds her by the horns, and the Turk by the 
tail.” He was enjoying the temperature of summer, and 
wished it were possible to sleep through winter like a dor- 
mouse. He could walk as far as his garden, but with sensi- 
ble fatigue. “I ride however daily; but reading is my 
delight. I should wish never to put pen to paper; and the 
more because of the treacherous practice some people have 
of publishing one’s letters without leave.” 

In the autumn he discussed meteorology with one cor- 
respondent, communism with another, and religious fanat- 
icism with a third. Few men of that day had done more 
to advance meteorology than Jefferson, but he confessed 
that no science had advanced less in the last hundred years. 
He was still an empiric, suffering his faith to go no further 
than his facts. The phenomena of snow, halo, aurora 
borealis, haze, looming, etc. were still but imperfectly 
understood, and electricity remained where Dr. Franklin’s 
discoveries had left it ‘“except with its new modification of 
galvinism.”’ 

A pamphlet on communistic commonwealths provoked 
mixed feelings. Jefferson could conceive that small soci- 


[5333 


Thomas Jefferson 


eties might exist happily on the principle of a communion 
of property; but he did not feel that a nation could be so 
governed, and looked to education and the spread of en- 
lightenment as the most reliable resource for ameliorating 
the condition of mankind. } 

That winter O’Meara’s Bonaparte arrived. After read- 
ing it Jefferson sent his impressions to Adams. It raised 
his opinion of Napoleon’s understanding. Hitherto he had 
thought him “the greatest of all military captains but an 
indifferent statesman, and misled by unworthy passions.” 
But flashes in his conversations with O’Meara “prove a 
mind of great expansion although not of distinct develop- 
ment and reasoning.” The book, he added, “‘makes us 
forget his atrocities for a moment in commiseration of 
his sufferings.’” But it also showed that nature had denied 
Napoleon the moral sense; and there was no safety to 
nations while he was permitted to roamat large. On the 
principle of self-preservation therefore it was right to 
confine him for life as a lion or tiger. 

In 1822 Judge William Johnson of Charleston had pub- 
lished his excellent Life and Correspondence of General 
Nathanael Greene. A few months later the unhappy 
author, writhing under the lash of the North American 
Review, wrote to Jefferson, who replied (March 4, 1823) 
with words of consolation and encouragement. He did 
not take the North American Review; ‘consequently 
J have never seen its observations on your inestimable 
history.” 


“But a reviewer can never let a work pass uncensored. He must 
always make himself wiser than his author. . . . On this occasion he 
seems to have had more sensibility for Virginia than she has for her- 
self; for on reading the work I saw nothing to touch our pride or jeal- 
ousy, but every expression of respect and good will which truth could 


[ 534 | 


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justify. The family of enemies whose buzz you apprehend are now 
nothing.... Do not therefore fear these insects. ... Let me then im- 
plore you, dear Sir, to finish your history of parties. ... We have 
been too careless of our future reputation, while our Tories will omit 
nothing to place usin the wrong. Besides the five volumed libel ! which 
represents us as struggling for office, and not at all to prevent our gov- 
ernment from being administered into a monarchy, the life of Hamilton 
is in the hands of a man who, to the bitterness of the priest adds the 
rancour of the fiercest Federalism.2, Mr. Adams’s papers too and his 
biography will descend of course to his son, whose pen you know is 
pointed, and his prejudices not in our favour. And doubtless other 
things are in preparation unknown to us. On our part we are depend- 
ing on truth to make itself known, while history is taking a contrary 
set which may become too inveterate for correction.” 


Madison, he added, would leave something, but chiefly 
on the early history of the constitution : — 


“After he joined me in the Administration he had no leisure to write. 
This too was my case. But although I had not time to prepare any- 
thing express, my letters (all preserved) will furnish the daily occur- 
rences and views from my return from Europe in 1790 till I retired finally 
from office. These will command more conviction than anything I 
could have written after my retirement, no day having ever passed 
during that period without a letter to somebody; written too in the 
moment and in the warmth and freshness of fact and feeling they will 
carry internal evidence that what they breathe is genuine. .. . But 
multiplied testimony, multiplied views, will be necessary to give solid 
establishment to truth. Much is known to one which is not known to 
another, and no one knows everything. It is the sum of individual 
knowledge which is to make up the whole truth and to give its correct 
current through future time.” 


He hoped therefore that Johnson would not withhold 
his stock of information. Some weeks later in reply to 
questions from the Judge he sent him another long and 
valuable letter to show that the Republican party was an 


1 John Marshall’s Life of Washington. 
2 The Rev. John M. Mason, who however abandoned the task. 


[535 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


opposition party on principle, not merely seeking for office. 
In this letter he reverted to his old view that the Missour1 
question “‘is not dead, it only sleepeth. The Indian Chief 
said he did not go to war for every petty injury by itself, 
but put it into his pouch, and when that was full he then 
made war.” 

If Jefferson was unwilling to risk a civil war for the sake 
of taking a small step in the direction of abolishing do- 
mestic slavery, neither was he prepared to risk foreign war 
for the sake of emancipating or assisting in the emancipa- 
tion of the insurgent Spanish colonies in America. Presi- 
dent Monroe was being pressed to play the Republican 
Don Quixote; but before coming to a decision he went to 
consult the oracle of Monticello at the beginning of sum- 
mer. As luck would have it Jefferson was away in his 
other home at Poplar Forest, Bedford; and consequently 
a letter which informs posterity as well took the place of a 
conversation which would only have informed the Presi- 
dent. The letter admits and betrays (as we shall see) a 
lack of sufficient information about the currents and cross 
currents of European diplomacy; but the reasoning is 
vigorous and the purpose clear. It begins: — 


TO THE PRESIDENT 


Monticello, June 11, 1823. 
Dear Sir, 


Considering that I had not been to Bedford for a twelvemonth be- 
fore, I thought myself singularly unfortunate in so timing my journey, 
as to have been absent exactly at the moment of your late visit to our 
neighbourhood. The loss, indeed, was all my own; for in these short 
interviews with you I generally get my political compass rectified, learn 
from you whereabouts we are, and correct my course again. In ex- 
change for this, I can give you but newspaper ideas, and little indeed 
of these, for I read but a single paper, and that hastily. I find Horace 


[ 536 | 


The Monroe Administrations 


and Tacitus so much better writers than the champions of the gazettes, 
that I lay those down to take up these with great reluctance. And on 
the question you propose, whether we can, in any form, take a bolder 
attitude than formerly in favour of liberty, I can give you but common- 
place ideas. They will be but the widow’s mite, and offered only 
because requested. The matter which now embroils Europe, the pre- 
sumption of dictating to an independent nation the form of its govern- 
ment, is so arrogant, so atrocious, that indignation, as well as moral 
sentiment, enlists all our partialities and prayers in favour of one, and 
our equal execrations against the other. I do not know, indeed, whether 
all nations do not owe to one another a bold and open declaration of 
their sympathies with the one party, and their detestation of the con- 
duct of the other. But farther than this we are not bound to go; and 
indeed, for the sake of the world, we ought not to increase the jeal- 
ousies, or draw on ourselves the power of this formidable confederacy. 

I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take 
active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are 
entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of 
power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of govern- 
ment, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. All their 
energies are expended in the destruction of the labour, property, and 
lives of their people. On our part, never had a people so favourable 
a chance of trying the opposite system, of peace and fraternity with 
mankind, and the direction of all our means and faculties to the pur- 
poses of improvement instead of destruction. With Europe we have 
few occasions of collision, and these, with a little prudence and forbear- 
ance, may be generally accommodated. Of the brethren of our own 
hemisphere, none are yet, or for an age to come will be, in a shape, 
condition, or disposition to war against us. And the foothold which 
the nations of Europe had in either America, is slipping from under 
them, so that we shall soon be rid of their neighbourhood. Cuba alone 
seems at present to hold up a speck of war to us. Its possession by 
Great Britain would, indeed, be a great calamity to us. Could we in- 
duce her to join us in guarantying its independence against all the 
world, except Spain, it would be nearly as valuable to us as if it were 
our own. But should she take it, I would not immediately go to war 
for it; because the first war on other accounts will give it to us; or the 
island will give itself to us, when able to do so. While no duty, there- 
fore, calls on us to take part in the present war of Europe, and a golden 


[ 537] 


Thomas Jefferson _ 


harvest offers itself in reward for doing nothing, peace and neutrality 
seem to be our duty and interest.” 


From this point, misled by his lifelong experience of the 
tortuous insincerities of British and European diplomacy, 
he attempts a reconstruction of the real objects which he 
supposed to underlie Canning’s diplomatic correspondence. 
The British aristocracy, he thought, fearing a popular 
revolution, must have made a secret contract with the 
Continental monarchies for military aid “‘should insurrec- 
tion take place among her people.’’ On this theory Britain 
must be playing false both with Spain and her revolted 
Colonies. Her diplomats therefore had fabricated “‘dou- 
ble papers,” and talked of morals and principles to gull 
their own people, as if qualms of conscience would not 
permit them to go all lengths with their Holy Allies. “A 
fraudulent neutrality, if neutrality at all, is all that Spain 
will get from her.”’ Here he breaks off: “‘I am going be- 
yond my text and sinning against the adage of carrying 
coals to Newcastle. In hazarding to you my crude and 
uninformed notions of things beyond my cognizance only 
be so good as to remember that it is at your request.” 
He was confident that the President would do what was 
right, leaving Europe to act its follies and crimes “while we 
pursue in good faith the paths of peace and prosperity.” 

Jefferson was mistaken in his suspicions of British 
diplomacy. In the Tory government of unreformed Eng- 
land Castlereagh had been succeeded at the Foreign Office 
by Canning; and Canning, though he remained a Tory at 
home, a stalwart supporter of Old Sarum, was developing 
a liberal foreign policy favourable to the liberties of other 
nations. In 1818, when the Czar proposed that a Holy 
Alliance of European monarchs should aid Spain in sup- 
pressing republican principles in South America, Castle- 


[ 538 | 


The Monroe Administrations 


reagh had merely replied that it was an enterprise in which 
England would not participate; but on becoming Foreign 
Secretary in September, 1822, Canning speedily took steps 
towards recognising the independence of the Spanish col- 
onies in America, and by the autumn of 1823 Monroe had 
unqualified proofs that British foreign policy was in con- 
formity with republican aspirations. Canning was acting 
in the spirit of his splendid if slightly bombastical declara- 
tion: “I called the New World into existence in order 
to redress the balance of the Old,’ — a British Columbus 
and a British George Washington rolled into one! On 
receiving evidence of England’s sincerity President Mon- 
roe forwarded the papers to Monticello and asked for Jef- 
ferson’s opinion. The text of the reply cannot be omitted ; 
for it is the last important document in Jefferson’s 
career as an American statesman, and it marks the cul- 
minating success of his foreign policy in that Grand De- 
sign which took shape shortly afterwards in the Monroe 
Doctrine : — 
TO; THE: PRESIDENT 


Monticello, October 24, 1823. 
Dear Sir, 

The question presented by the letters you have sent me, is the most 
momentous which has ever been offered to my contemplation since that 
of Independence. That made us a nation, this sets our compass, and 
points the course which we are to steer through the ocean of time open- 
ing on us. And never could we embark on it under circumstances more 
auspicious. Our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to en- 
tangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer 
Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North and 
South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe, and pecul- 
larly her own. She should therefore have a system of her own, separate 
and apart from that of Europe. While the last is labouring to become 
the domicile of despotism, our endeavour should surely be, to make our 
hemisphere that of freedom. One nation, most of all, could disturb us 


[ 539 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


in this pursuit; she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. 
By acceding to her proposition, we detach her from the band of despots, 
bring her mighty weight into the scale of free government, and emanci- 
pate a continent at one stroke, which might otherwise linger long in 
doubt and difficulty. Great Britain is the nation which can do us the 
most harm of any one, or all on earth; and with her on our side we need | 
not fear the whole world. With her then, we should most sedulously 
cherish a cordial friendship; and nothing would tend more to knit our 
affections than to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause. 
Not that I would purchase even her amity at the price of taking part 
inher wars. But the war in which the present proposition might engage 
us, should that be its consequence, is not her war, but ours. Its object 
is to introduce and establish the American system of keeping out of 
our land all foreign powers, of never permitting those of Europe to 
intermeddle with the affairs of our nations. It is to maintain our own 
principle, not to depart from it. And if, to facilitate this, we can effect 
a division in the body of the European powers, and draw over to our 
side its most powerful member, surely we should doit. But I am clearly 
of Mr. Canning’s opinion, that it will prevent instead of provoking war. 
With Great Britain withdrawn from their scale, and shifted into that 
of our two continents, all Europe combined would not undertake such 
a war. For how would they propose to get at either enemy without 
superior fleets? Nor is the occasion to be slighted which this propo- 
sition offers, of declaring our protest against the atrocious violations or 
the rights of nations, by the interference of any one in the internal affairs 
of another, so flagitiously begun by Buonaparte, and now continued by 
the equally lawless Alliance, calling itself Holy. 

But we have first to ask ourselves a question. Do we wish to acquire 
to our own confederacy any one or more of the Spanish provinces? I 
candidly confess, that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interest- 
ing addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The 
control which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over the 
Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well 
as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our 
political well-being. Yet, as I am sensible that this can never be ob- 
tained, even with her own consent, but by war — and its independence, 
which is our second interest, (and especially its independence of Eng- 
land) can be secured without it, I have no hesitation in abandoning 
my first wish to future chances, and accepting its independence, with 


[ 540 ] 


The Monroe Administrations 


peace and the friendship of England, rather than its association at the 
expense of war and her enmity. 

I could honestly, therefore, join in the declaration proposed, that 
we aim not at the acquisition of any of those possessions, that we will] 
not stand in the way of any amicable arrangement between them and 
the mother country; but that we will oppose, with all our means, the 
forcible interposition of any other power, as auxiliary, stipendiary, of 
under any other form or pretext, and most especially, their transfer 
to any power by conquest, cession, or acquisition in any other way. 
I should think it, therefore, advisable, that the Executive should en- 
courage the British government to a continuance in the dispositions 
expressed in these letters, by an assurance of his concurrence with them 
as far as his authority goes; and that as it may lead to war, the declara- 
tion of which requires an act of Congress, the case shall be laid before 
them for consideration at their first meeting, and under the reasonable 
aspect in which it is seen by himself. 

I have been so long weaned from political subjects, and have so long 
ceased to take any interest in them, that I am sensible I am not quali- 
fied to offer opinions on them worthy of any attention. But the ques- 
tion now proposed involves consequences so lasting, and effects so 
decisive of our future destinies, as to rekindle all the interest I have here- 
tofore felt on such occasions, and to induce me to the hazard of opin- 
ions, which will prove only my wish to contribute still my mite towards 
any thing which may be useful to our country. And praying you to 
accept it at only what it is worth, I add the assurance of my constant 


and affectionate friendship and respect. 
Tu. JEFFERSON. 


A few weeks later, December 2, 1823, the President 
gave to the world in a message to Congress the famous 
announcement that the United States would consider any 
attempt on the part of European powers “‘to extend their 
system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to 
our peace and safety.”” But the message belongs to Ameri- 
can history. Enough for us that it was prompted by Jef- 
ferson, infused with his spirit, drafted and enounced by 
his political pupil and disciple, the last of the noble line 

of Virginian Dynasts. 


[ 541 | 


CHARTER ALY. 


JEFFERSON FOUNDS THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 


“Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” 
— Motto of the University of Virginia 


F all the monuments left by Jefferson none is so 

truly characteristic as the University of Virginia. 

Every brick, every pillar, and cupola tells of the 
architect and master builder. Until you have seen it 
and Monticello you have not known Jefferson. Its origin 
has been contrasted with that of the foundations which 
preceded it in America. William and Mary, famous for 
its early alumni, was a royal college which failed to move 
with the times. It lost ground when the capital was re- 
moved to Richmond. Its growth was stunted by re- 
strictive Trusts. Its reputation dwindled when its great 
law teacher, George Wythe, departed. Other early 
American Universities like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and 
Princeton “‘began as mere schools for humble colonies 
with no prevision of the great destinies which awaited 
them. But the University of Virginia sprang into life 
in full panoply from the conception of a single man, like 
Minerva from the brain of Jove.” Jefferson was more 
than founder, more even than ‘father’ of the University, 
though that was one of the three titles to fame which he 
chose to have inscribed on his tomb. He was founder, 
father, architect, and law-giver. He chose the site, made 
the plans, supervised their execution, chose the first pro- 


[ 542 | 


Jefferson Founds the University of Virginia 


fessors, had the happiness to see his buildings filled with 
students, and to act as their first rector. But for him the 
University had never been. He collected money, in- 
spired its supporters in the Virginia Assembly with his 
own enthusiasm, and made it a great Virginian institu- 
tion. All this was done after he had passed the allotted 
span of life — an achievement for which it would be hard 
to find a parallel. It was part of a general scheme to give 
his native state a worthy system of education — a scheme 
long cherished, which goes back to his first effort in 1776. 
When peace at last came to Europe and America, Jeffer- 
son saw his opportunity. In 1815 he wrote to his friend, 
Joseph C. Cabell, a Member of the Virginia Assembly, 
who proved to be an able and devoted servant in the 
cause of education, to tell him that J. B. Say, the 
celebrated French economist, was thinking of leaving 
France for America, and settling in the neighbourhood of 
Monticello. Might they not attract such men and con- 
vert the languishing Albemarle Academy, with the help 
of additional funds, into “‘the best seminary of the United 
States’’? He mentions various financial resources, and 
adds: “In addition to this if you could obtain a loan for 
four or five years only of seven thousand to eight thousand 
dollars, I think I have it now in my power to obtain three 
of the ablest characters in the world to fill the higher pro- 
fessorships. . . . — three such characters as are not in a 
single University of Europe.” 

Some modern benefactors of American Universities 
seem to suppose that buildings are all important. 
Jefferson, in spite of his passion for architecture, knew 
that the fame and use of a University depends on the 
characters and talents of the teachers, and not upon 

the quality or quantity of the buildings. His first step 


[ 543 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


was to sketch out a comprehensive plan of education and 
to call forth from the legislature of his native state a lib- 
eral spirit in the endowment of public instruction which 
would place it on a level with New England. The scheme 
which he and his friends adopted took shape in a report 
recommending that for educational purposes Virginia 
should be divided into townships and districts. In each 
township a primary school should be established and in 
each district an academy; the system to be crowned by a 
state university with nine professorships. In accordance 
with these recommendations the House of Delegates 
passed a Bill; but the Senate insisted on referring it to 
public opinion, and the two Houses ordered that the 
Report, the Bill, Jefferson’s Bill of 1776, and a letter he 
had written expounding his views should be printed and 
distributed through the Commonwealth. Much dis- 
cussion followed, and Jefferson was asked to prepare fur- 
ther bills for establishing a system of public education. 
In a letter enclosing one of these bills to Cabell he made 
an ironical apology for having written it in intelligible 


English : — 


“T dislike the verbose and intricate style of the modern English 
statutes, and in our revised code I endeavoured to restore it to the 
simple one of the ancient statutes in such original bills as I drew in 
that work. I suppose the reformation has not been acceptable, as it 
has been little followed. You however can easily correct this bill to the 
taste of my brother lawyers, by making every other word a ‘said’ or 
‘aforesaid,’ and saying everything over two or three times, so as that 
nobody but we of the craft can untwist the diction and find out what 
it means.” 


He was working heart and soul on these legislative 
projects, far more interested in them than in his own 
financial troubles. ‘“‘I have only this single anxiety in this 


[ 544 | 


Jefferson Founds the University of Virginia 


world,” he wrote, of a bill then before the legislature : — “‘it 
is a bantling of forty years’ growth and nursing, and if I 
can once see it on its legs I will sing with sincerity and 
pleasure my nunc dimittis.” 

In 1818 to the same correspondent he said: “A sys- 
tem of general instruction, which shall reach every de- 
scription of our citizens from the highest to the poorest, 
as it was the earliest, so it will be the latest of all the public 
concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an inter- 
est.”’ In that year there assembled in an unpretending 
tavern at Rockfish Gap in the Blue Ridge a gathering 
of Virginians to confer on questions of public education. 
There were present, besides many leading public men, 
President Monroe and his predecessor in office. But 
it was remarked, says Tucker, by the lookers on that 
Mr. Jefferson was the principal object of regard, that he 
seemed to be the chief mover of the body — the soul that 
animated it; ‘and some who were present, struck by these 
manifestations of deference, conceived a more exalted idea 
of him on this simple occasion than they had ever pre- 
viously entertained.” Jefferson was unanimously chosen 
to preside, and the meeting concurred with him in recom- 
mending Charlottesville as the most suitable site for the 
University. The choice was sanctioned by the Legisla- 
ture, and $44,000 were subscribed in Albemarle and the 
neighbouring counties, chiefly by Jefferson’s influence 
and example. Jefferson and nine others subscribed 
$1,000 apiece, and this money along with other funds was 
transferred in 1819 to the Visitors of the University. It 
was a proud day for Albemarle and Charlottesville when 
the corner stone of the University was laid. But it had 
cost Jefferson, as Parton reminds us, much tactful di- 

plomacy to get it laid “just there within sight of his own 


[545 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


abode.” Other localities had their champions. If a com- 
missioner objected that a more salubrious site might be 
found, Jefferson would draw from his pocket a list of 
persons aged over eighty living in the neighbourhood of 
Charlottesville. When others suggested a more central 
location, Jefferson cut a card in the shape of Virginia on 
which 47s site was shown by a dot. By balancing the card 
on the point of a pencil he proved that the dot was nearly at 
the centre of the State. But the geographical centre might 
not be the centre of population. To meet this objection 
Jefferson presented a wooden map of Virginia on which 
he had inscribed in his own hand the population of all the 
counties, to provideocular demonstration that, if the popula- 
tion of Virginia had to revolve, Charlottesville would be the 
pivot. So “‘the corner stone was laid where the Master of 
Monticello could watch its rising glories from his portico, 
and ride over every day to the site five miles distant.” 1 
From the spring of 1819 until 1824, Jefferson spent a 
great part of his time in superintending the building of 
his University. It was time well spent. Those who have 
compared Monticello with other private houses of the 
same date, and the University of Virginia with contem- 
porary public buildings in Europe and America will not 
dispute that Jefferson was one of the finest architects of 
the day. He designed not only the general plan, but all the 
subordinate parts, and made almost daily visits to see 
that the bricklayers, plasterers, and stone cutters, mostly 
from Philadelphia, executed the work to his satisfaction. 
It was a ten-mile ride to the University and back. When 
he could not undertake the journey he used to watch the 
work from the northeast corner of his terrace at Monti- 


1See Parton’s Life of Fefferson, Chap. 70. It is from the terrace, not from 
the portico, that one can see the University Buildings. 


[ 546 | 


Jefferson Founds the University of Virginia 


cello through a telescope, which is still preserved in the 
Library of the University. 

The University was built on three sides of a square 
“lawn,” as the Campus is called. On one side is the 
Rotunda, on the other two the professors’ houses called 
Pavilions. Between the Pavilions are the students’ 
rooms, one storey high, with colonnades. The ten Pa- 
vilions display different styles of classical architecture, 
with a variety very pleasing to the eye. Most of the 
capitals and columns were executed in Italy. As the work 
progressed, Jefferson loved to conduct visitors over the 
detailed beauties of his rising fabric. Each Pavilion was 
adorned with its appropriate portico, and Jefferson — as 
cicerone — would pause before these models to show his 
admiring countrymen how faithfully they presented the 
true features of Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian.! On these 
embellishments, says Tucker, probably more money was 
spent than on those parts which were indispensable. As 
usual in such cases the estimates were constantly exceeded ; 
and but for Jefferson’s persuasive eloquence and influence 
over the Legislature, which obtained from time to time 
further grants in aid, the work must have been brought 
to a standstill. “His knowledge of the springs of human 
action, and his address in putting them into operation, 
were never more conspicuous”’; but on the same authority 
we are told that his skilful advocacy would have been 
unavailing but for the marvellous patience and persever- 
ance of which his correspondence with Cabell, filling a 
portly volume, and innumerable letters to other corre- 
spondents provide ample testimony. 


1 Sarah Randolph, in those charming and often pathetic reminiscences of her 
great-grandfather, speaks of the University “whose classic dome and columns 
are now [1871] lit up by the rays of the same sun which shines on the ruin and 
desolation of his own once happy home.” 


[ 547 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


Though Jefferson spent much on decoration and finish, 
he was a thrifty and economical builder. To save bricks 
he built serpentine walls, which are among the curiosities 
of the University. 

To the modern benefactor, who thinks nothing of giving 
a million dollars for the enlargement of a University, the 
hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars, at which Jef- 
ferson in 1820 computed the cost of the whole when com- 
pleted, will not appear extravagant. Indeed our wonder is 
that a design so graceful in its variety and harmony could 
have been executed for so small a sum. An Oxford or a 
Cambridge man may find it difficult to share Jefferson’s 
decided preference for classical over Gothic structures ; 
but, however that may be, the University of Virginia 
must be pronounced, not only one of the choicest examples 
of academic architecture in the United States, but unique 
among them all. 

Everything done and proposed required the sanction 
of the Board of Visitors, which was chosen in February, 
1819. It consisted of Jefferson, Madison, Cabell, and 
four others. They almost invariably deferred to Jeffer- 
son’s views; partly no doubt for the reason often urged 
by Madison that, as the scheme was his and as the chief 
responsibility for its success or failure would fall on him, 
it was but fair to let him execute it in his own way. At 
their first meeting in March, 1819, Jefferson was appointed 
Rector. In September, 1823, he was able to write to Wil- 
liam Short : — 


“By that time our rotunda (the walls of which will be finished this 
month) will have received its roof, and will show itself externally to some 
advantage. Its columns only will be wanting, as they must await their 
capitals from Italy. We have just received from thence, and are now 
putting up, the marble capitals of the buildings we have already erected, 


[ 548 | 


Jefferson Founds the University of Virginia 


which completes our whole system, except the rotunda and its adjacent 
gymnasia. All are now ready to receive their occupants, and should the 
legislature, at their next session, liberate our funds as is hoped, we shall 
ask but one year more to procure our professors, for most of whom we 
must go to Europe.” 


To get European professors they despatched F. W. Gil- 
mer to England, and Jefferson wrote to Samuel Parr and 
Dugald Stewart to ask for their aid in the task of selection. 
When it came to the appointment of professors a hue and 
cry was raised by the orthodox because the Board of Vis- 
itors decided to appoint a learned friend of Priestley’s, 
Dr. Cooper, who had been a victim of the Sedition Law 
and was reputed to be a Unitarian.’ A storm was raised 
in the legislature, and Jefferson’s letters do full justice 
to the situation. He laid about him vigorously, accusing 
the clergy and especially the Presbyterians of trying to 
restore the Holy Inquisition. In the end he gave way 
rather than imperil public support; but the Visitors 
stuck to their principle of getting the best men available 
without regard to patriotism or nepotism. The first pro- 
fessors, according to George Tucker, all belonged to the 
Episcopal church ‘“‘except Dr. Blaettermann who I be- 
lieve was a German Lutheran; but I think there was no 
one except Mr. Lomax, the professor of Law, and now a 
judge, who was a communicant. I don’t remember that I 
ever heard the religious creeds of either professors or 
visitors discussed or inquired into by Mr. Jefferson or any 
one else.” This quotation is from a letter written in 1856 
by Jefferson’s first biographer, the only Virginian among 
the first professors, in response to an inquiry from Ran- 
dall. Several came from England, including George Long, 
the well-known classical scholar, and Thomas Key, who 


1 He was to fill two chairs — Chemistry and Law, an unusual combination. 


[ 549 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


both afterwards returned to appointments in London. 
Another Englishman was Dr. Dunglison who became 
Jefferson’s physician. Jefferson was much criticised also 
because there was no professorship of divinity. But this, 
as he remarked in his Annual Report for 1822, was in con- | 
formity with the principles of the Virginian constitution 
which placed all sects and religion on an equal footing, 
and relied upon their jealousies to guard that equality 
from encroachment or surprise. Provision however was 
made for giving instruction in the Hebrew, Greek, and 
Latin languages, “the depositories of the originals and of 
the earliest and most respected authorities of the faith of 
every sect, and for courses of ethical. lectures developing 
those moral obligations in which all sects agree.’ Al- 
though the establishment of a particular form of religion 
within the University was barred, they proposed, he said, 
to allow any sectarian school of Divinity to establish itself 
on the confines of the University, so that its students might 
have ready and convenient access to University lectures. 
It was observed many years afterwards that if the offer 
thus made on very liberal terms to the various sects had 
been accepted, “‘the University of Virginia would now com- 
prise the most extensive school of theology in the world.” 

Besides being released from sectarian bigotry students 
of the new University enjoyed another unusual privilege. 
Its first Rector, as Dr. Edwin Alderman has remarked, 
“believed in free choice of a career in educational achieve- 
ment, and in the University gave the opportunity of elec- 
tion.” Jefferson told George Ticknor that they would 
certainly vary the Harvard practice of holding all the 
students to one prescribed course of reading. “‘We shall 
on the contrary allow them uncontrolled choice in the 
lectures they shall choose to attend, and require elemen- 


[550] 


Jefferson Founds the University of Virginia 


tary qualification only and sufficient age.” The ques- 
tion what qualification should be required for the admis- 
sion of students to a University is a problem admitting of 
no single solution; for it must depend largely upon the 
curriculum in the schools of the district from which a 
University draws most of its undergraduates. But if the 
object of a University is to liberalise the minds of its stu- 
dents, to enlarge their views, and to give them all some 
share, however small, in the great human heritages of 
art, literature, and philosophy, they will not be permitted 
to embark on a technical course in a state of barbarous 
ignorance extending even to the grammar of their own 
language and to the elements of their own history. 

Through the kindness of the authorities I was al- 
lowed, when I visited Charlottesville, to examine the 
famous Minutes of the Board of Visitors written out in 
Jefferson’s own hand and usually signed also by Madi- 
son and Monroe. By good fortune I found in them Jef- 
ferson’s own answer to the question here raised. On 
October 4, 1824, the Rector wrote : — 


“No diploma shall be given to anyone who has not passed such an 
examination of the Latin language as shall have proved him able to 
read the highest classics in that language with ease, thorough under- 
standing, and just quantity; and if he be also a proficient in the Greek 
let that too be stated in his diploma; the intention being that the 
reputation of the University shall not be committed but to those who, 
to an eminence in some one or more of the sciences taught in it, add a 
proficiency in these languages which constitute the basis of good edu- 
cation and are indispensable to fill up the character of a ‘well educated 


>>> 


man. 


There may seem to some to be a tinge of old world con- 
servatism in the value which Jefferson here sets on the 
classics, and in his view that a high standard of Latin 


[551] 


Thomas Jefferson 


should be insisted upon even for scientists who are to ob- 
tain academic honours. Being himself proficient in Latin 
and Greek as well as French and Italian, and being besides 
one of the foremost among American men of science, a 
mathematician to boot, a botanist, with considerable 
skill in zoology and anthropology, he may perhaps have 
been inclined to set up rather too high a standard for the 
average University student. Indeed it may be doubted 
whether all the professors whom he chose could have 
read Cicero and Tacitus with ease, or Lucretius and Hor- 
ace with thorough understanding and just quantity. But 
in an age when elegance and even grammar do not always 
mark academic writings we shall not hastily condemn 
Jefferson for prizing scholarship. Words are the fortresses 
of thought. Slovenly and inaccurate writing is no friend 
of truth or science. It may be conceded that some great 
masters of our language have known neither Latin nor 
Greek; but they are the exceptions for whom it is unwise 
to legislate. 

One other question may be asked. Was Jefferson right 
in his very high estimate of the value of a public system 
of education and of a State University ? Is not self-educa- 
tion the only true form of education, and do school masters 
and professors promote it? Is political wisdom teach- 
able, and can it be taught by those who don’t possess it ? 
Above all has the wonderful extension of free popular 
education in the United States and elsewhere during the 
last century fulfilled the hopes of Jefferson and others 
who founded their faith in representative government on 
the instructed intelligence of the common people? It is 
right to put these questions here; but it would be wrong 
to attempt an answer. Enough that, in spite of manifold 
disappointments, an overwhelming body of opinion sup- 


[552] 


Jefferson Founds the University of Virginia 


ports Jefferson’s judgment, that in order to ensure liberty, 
justice, peace, and good government you must first dispel 
ignorance and equalise opportunity. And how can you 
do this unless you place your children’s feet on the ladder 
by which, if they have the capacity, they can mount from 
an elementary school to a university? 


[553 ] 


CHAP TE RV 
THE CURTAIN FALLS 


1824-1826 


‘¢R'v’n in his ashes live their wonted fires.’” — Gray. 


HILE President Monroe was excogitating the Mon- 

\ | roe Doctrine, the topic of every conversation, so 
wrote Jefferson to La Fayette, was “‘who is to be 

the next president’? The question, he predicted, would 
ultimately be reduced to the northernmost and southern- 
most candidate, meaning John Quincy Adams and Craw- 
ford of Georgia. But when the electoral votes were 
counted, Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, the hero of New 
Orleans, stood at the head of the poll, with John Quincy 
Adams a good second, followed by Crawford and Clay. 
As no candidate had a clear majority, the election de- 
volved on the House of Representatives, and Adams was 
chosen President. The very name of Federalism, as Jef- 
ferson said, had been ‘prostrated’ by the Hartford Con- 
vention, the victory of Orleans, and the peace of Ghent. 
Many of its votaries ‘in shame and mortification’ now 
called themselves Republicans. But the name only was 
changed. “‘The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the 
people, and is a Tory by nature.” Such a one would still 
aim at strengthening the central government and en- 
croaching on state rights. But Jefferson’s correspondence 
in these last years, from 1824 to 1826, reveals no excite- 
ment about the presidency, or the doings at Washington. 
Not that his public spirit was impaired, though his natural 


[554] 


The Curtain Falls 


force was abated. Most of his remaining energy was de- 
voted to the University, the completion of the buildings, 
the choice of the professors, the admission of students, 
and the rules which as Rector it was his duty to frame for 
the guidance of the Institution. 

Jefferson’s interest in the larger problems of public 
policy remained; but the cares of government were 
no longer his; and he wrote to Edward Livingston on 
April 4, 1824: “I resign myself cheerfully to the managers 
of the ship, and the more contentedly as I am near the 
end of my voyage. I have learned to be less confident 
in the conclusions of human reason and give more credit 
to the honesty of contrary opinions.” The real friends of 
the Federal constitution — he observed to another — “‘if 
they wish it to be immortal, should be attentive by amend- 
ments to make it keep pace with the advance of the age 
in science and experience.”’ No great statesman of mod- 
ern times has more thoroughly imbibed the Baconian 
motto antiquitas seculi juventus mundi — that least trans- 
latable of Latin apothegms. All his old liberal preposses- 
sions remained in full force, though their expression might 
be mellowed by time and judgment. He was still the 
oracle whom all consulted. Among his responses is one to 
the President of a Jefferson debating society, commend- 
ing Sallust and Tacitus as models of sententious brevity, 
and warning young debaters against amplification — the 
vice of modern oratory. “‘It is an insult to an assembly 
of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting, instead of 
persuading. Speeches measured by the hour die with 
the hour.” 

He found time in the summer of 1824 to write a long 
letter to Major Cartwright, the veteran reformer, whose 
volume on the English constitution had delighted Jeffer- 


[555] 


Thomas Jefferson 


son by “tracing it from its rightful root, the Anglo Saxon.” 
If Jefferson had been an ardent young English radical, 
he could not have denounced with more fervour than in 
this letter to Cartwright the usurpations of the Norman, 
Tudor, and Stuart kings, or the villainy of Hume’s Tory 
history, or the shocking error of those English judges who 
had sought to establish religious orthodoxy by making it 
part and parcel of the common law. 

About the same time Martin Van Buren, a rising wire- 
puller, who was afterwards to attain the presidency, sent 
him an elaborate Philippic by Timothy Pickering, who 
had returned to the political arena armed with poisoned 
darts for Adams, Jefferson, and others who had crossed 
his path. “I could not have believed,” wrote the Sage 
of Monticello, ‘that for so many years, and to such a 
period of advanced age, he could have nourished passions 
so vehement and viperous. It appears that for thirty 
years past he has been industriously collecting materials 
for vituperating the characters he had marked out for his 
hatred.” Pickering had arraigned Jefferson partly for his 
actions, partly for his motives. His actions had been 
approved by a great majority of their fellow citizens, and 
Pickering’s approbation was not to have been expected. 
““My motives he chooses to ascribe to hypocrisy, to am- 
bition, and a passion for popularity. Of these the world 
must judge between us. It is no office of his or mine. To 
that tribunal I have ever submitted my actions and mo- 
tives without ransacking the Union for certificates.” But 
while leaving most of Pickering’s libels to their fate he 
points out that one very elaborate statement, quoted from 
Dr. Stuart, to the effect that after the publication of the 
Mazzei letter Washington had called Jefferson to ac- 
count “‘in a tone of unusual severity,” and that in some 


[556] 


The Curtain Falls 


fashion or other Jefferson had humbled himself to ap- 
pease Washington’s just resentment, was a pure fabrica- 
tion, invented apparently by persons boiling with party 
passion who substituted fancies for facts. He mentions 
also, in connection with this ‘unqualified falsehood,’ that 
a paragraph interpolated into his Mazzei letter charging 
the United States with ingratitude and injustice to France 
had actually been treated as genuine not only in the or- 
dinary Federalist pamphlets but even by John Marshall, 
who had thus invested a literary forgery with the dignity 
of history and ‘the sanctity of the ermine.’ In this letter 
Jefferson makes a small but not uninteresting contribu- 
tion to our knowledge of Washington and Hamilton. He 
says that Washington did not much like the mimicry of 
royal forms and ceremonies, which were introduced when 
he assumed the Presidency at New York. After a time he 
asked his Cabinet ministers to consult on the matter. 
““We met at my office. Hamilton and myself agreed at 
once that there was too much ceremony for the character 
of our government.” But as Randolph and Knox dis- 
sented, no change was made. Jefferson adds that his last 
parting with General Washington, at the Inauguration 
of Adams in March, 1797, was ‘“‘warmly affectionate.” 
Between that date and Washington’s death only one ses- 
sion intervened; and though, having no occasion for cor- 
respondence, they did not correspond, “‘I never had any 
reason to believe any change on his part, as there cer- 
tainly was none on mine.”’ It was true that after the com- 
position of his second and entirely Federal Cabinet Wash- 
ington had been drawn away from the Republican party ; 
but they had never weighed this aberration against his 
immeasurable merits, or allowed a thing so temporary to 
cloud the glories of a splendid life. 


[557] 


Thomas Jefferson 


In the autumn of 1824 La Fayette made a triumphal 
tour of the United States. He was treated as the Nation’s 
guest, and Jefferson took advantage of the general en- 
thusiasm to suggest that Congress should reward the 
hero’s services to American Independence — a sugges-. 
tion which was handsomely carried out. In October he 
received a letter from Jefferson. It was an invitation to 
Monticello: ‘“‘What recollections, dear friend, will this 
call up to you and me! What a history have we to run 
over from the evening that yourself, Mousnier, Bernau, 
and other patriots settled in my house in Paris the out- 
lines of the constitution you wished! And to trace 
through all the disastrous chapters of Robespierre, 
Barras, Bonaparte, and the Bourbons!” A few days 
later he told a correspondent that La Fayette in his prog- 
ress from town to town was being welcomed with such 
acclamations as no crowned head had ever received. 
From Charlottesville a cavalcade of Virginian gentry, with 
trumpets and banners, escorted the hero up to Monticello. 
As the carriage drew up, Jefferson descended the steps 
of the portico, and the two veterans embraced with 
emotion. Jefferson Randolph, who witnessed the scene, 
tells us that his grandfather was feeble and tottering, 
while La Fayette (though ten years younger) was lame 
and broken in health by long confinement in the Austrian 
dungeon of Olmutz. The University had not yet been 
opened; but Jefferson was present with Madison and 
President Monroe at a dinner given to La Fayette in 
Charlottesville, and replied to a toast of his own health 
in a graceful speech which was read for him by a friend. 
In this he mentioned that La Fayette had been his most 
powerful auxiliary and advocate, when as American min- 
ister in Paris he was endeavouring to advance the mutual 


[558 ] 


The Curtain Falls 


interests of France and the United States. La Fayette’s 
influence and connections in Paris were great. ‘“‘ All doors 
of all departments were open to him at all times; to me 
only formally and at appointed times. In truth I only 
held the nail, he drove it. Honour him then as your bene- 
factor in peace as well as in war.” 

At the beginning of December, George Ticknor and his 
wife, accompanied by Daniel Webster, made their way 
from Washington to Madison’s home, Montpellier, on 
the western side of what are called the South West moun- 
tains. They were entertained by their host with excellent 
wines and an endless series of capital stories. Madison 
of course had not the Harvard culture nor the Federal 
finish. But the Bostonian was pleased to observe: 
“both Mr. Webster and myself were struck with a degree 
of good sense in his conversation which we had not an- 
ticipated from his school of politics and course of life.” 
Driving thence to Monticello they found everything on a 
larger scale, but nothing, said Ticknor, to mark the resi- 
dence of an ex-king. The party consisted of Jefferson, his 
daughter, Mrs. Randolph, Trist, a young Louisianian, who 
had married one of Jefferson’s granddaughters, several 
other grandchildren, a young lawyer, and George Long, 
the Cambridge scholar, who had just arrived to take up 
a classical professorship in the University of Virginia. 
Jefferson, wrote Ticknor, “‘is now eighty-two years of 
age, very little altered from what he was ten years ago, 
very active, lively, and happy, riding from ten to fifteen 
miles every day, and talking without the least restraint 
very pleasantly upon all subjects. In politics his interest 
seems nearly gone. He takes no newspaper but the Rich- 
mond Enquirer, and reads that reluctantly; but on all 
matters of literature, philosophy, and general interest he 


[559] 


Thomas Jefferson 


is prompt and even eager. He reads much Greek and 
Saxon. I saw his Greek Lexicon, printed in 1817; it was 
much worn with use and contained many curious notes. 
... Mr. Jefferson seems to enjoy life highly and very 
rationally; but he said well of himself the other evening, 
“When I can neither read nor ride I shall desire very much 
to make my bow.’ I think he bids fair to enjoy both yet 
nine or ten years.’ Daniel Webster has also left notes 
of his visit, but there is ample testimony that his account 
of Jefferson’s appearance and conversations, though care- 
fully studied, and coloured with the skill of a professional 
rhetorician, is too inaccurate to be worth repeating or 
correcting. It served however one good purpose; for 
Ellen Coolidge, after reading Webster’s description of 
her grandfather, wrote at Randall’s request her own rec- 
ollections “‘of the appearance of one whom I so tenderly 
loved and deeply venerated.”’ 


“His person and countenance were to me associated with so many 
of my best affections, so much of my highest reverence, that I could 
not expect other persons to see them as I did. One thing I will say — 
that never in my life did I see his countenance distorted by a single 
bad passion or unworthy feeling. . . . It was impossible to look on 
his face without being struck with its benevolent, intelligent, cheerful, 
and placid expression. It was at once intellectual, good, kind, and 
pleasant, while his tall spare figure spoke of health, activity, and that 
helpfulness, that power and will never to trouble another for what he — 
could do for himself, which marked his character. 

“His dress was simple, and adapted to his ideas of neatness and 
comfort. He paid little attention to fashion, wearing whatever he 
liked best, and sometimes blending the fashions of several different 
periods. He wore long waistcoats, when the mode was for very short, 
white cambric stocks fastened behind with a buckle, when cravats 
were universal. He adopted the pantaloon very late in life, because 
he found it more comfortable and convenient, and cut off his queue for 
the same reason. He made no change except from motives of the same 


[ 560 | 


The Curtain Falls 


kind, and did nothing to be in conformity with the fashion of the day. 
He considered such independence was the privilege of his age.” 


George Long, a good scholar,! was much liked by 
Jefferson, who noted, December 22, “Mr. Long, professor 
of Ancient Languages, is located in his apartments at the 
University. He drew by lot Pavilion No. 5. He appears 
to be a most amiable man, of fine understanding, well 
qualified for his department, and acquiring esteem as fast 
as he becomes known.” The other professors from Eng- 
land were expected almost daily to land at Norfolk; but 
their ship was delayed by bad weather. Jefferson was 
“‘dreadfully nonplussed”’ by their non-arrival, as the 
opening of the University had been announced for Feb- 
ruary I, and “to open an University without mathe- 
matics and without natural philosophy must bring on 
us ridicule and disgrace.” However on February 20 
all the five European professors had arrived, and the 
Rector was able to announce the opening of the Univer- 
sity for March 7. It was one of the proudest moments 
in his life, comparable in his own estimate of personal 
achievement with the writing of the Declaration of In- 
dependence and of the Statute establishing Freedom of 
Religion in his native state. 

While he was waiting thus impatiently for his professors 
Jefferson had been reading, as he told Adams, “the 
most extraordinary of all books” — Flourens’s experi- 
ments on the Functions of the Nervous System in verte- 
brated animals. Flourens, he thought, had gone far to 


1 In 1877, two years before his death, he published a translation of Jefferson’s 
favourite work of moral philosophy, The Discourses of Epictetus. Is it fanciful 
to suppose that this task was suggested to him by the discourses of Jefferson 
with whom he and the other professors dined regularly three times a week until 
_ Jefferson’s last illness ? 

[ 561 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


destroy the psychology of spiritualism and to establish the 
psychology of materialism : — 


“Cabanis had proved by the anatomical structure of certain por- 
tions of the human frame that they might be capable of receiving from 
the hand of the creator the faculty of thinking; Flourens proves that 
they have received it; that the cerebrum is the thinking organ; and 
that life and health may continue, and the animal be entirely without 
thought if deprived of that organ.” 


Upon these facts he puts a conundrum to Adams: after 
the cerebrum has been removed and the body deprived of 
thought but not of life, what happens to the soul? Does 
it remain in the body until death? On the same day, 
January 8, on which he addressed these speculations 
to John Adams, he wrote a longer letter to his friend Will- 
iam Short concerning one Harper, a Federalist, who, ex- 
aggerating his intimacy with Alexander Hamilton, had 
sought to prove that Hamilton and other leading Fed- 
eralists had no theoretical preference for monarchy above 
other forms of government. After referring to the oft- 
quoted discussion at his own table between Adams and 
Hamilton on the subject, Jefferson went on : — 


“Can anyone read Mr. Adams’s Defence of the American constitu- 
tions without seeing that he was a monarchist? And J. Q. Adams, the 
son, was more explicit than the father in his answer to Paine’s Rights. 
of Man. So much for the leaders. Their followers were divided. Some 
went the same lengths; others, and I believe the greater part, only 
wished a stronger Executive.”” At New York, when the Federal govern- 
ment was established, monarchical sentiments prevailed at all the 
dinner parties. “The furthest that any one would go in support of the 
republican features of our new government would be to say ‘the present 
constitution is well as a beginning and may be allowed a fair trial, but 
it is in fact only a stepping stone to something better.” Among their 
writers Dennie, the editor of the Portfolio, who was a kind of oracle 
with them, and called the Addison of America, openly avowed his 
preference of monarchy over all other forms of government, prided 


[ 562 | 


The Curtain Falls 


himself on the avowal, and maintained it by argument and without 
reserve in his publications. I do not myself know that the Essex Junto 
of Boston were monarchists, but I have always heard it so said, and 
never doubted it.” 


Now, to be sure, monarchy was defeated, and American 
Tories wished it to be forgotten that they had ever fa- 
voured it. Their ‘new ground’ was to consolidate and 
enlarge the functions of the central government by 
unlimited constructions of the constitution, in order to 
concentrate all power ultimately at Washington. 

During the spring of 1825, writes his first biographer, 
George Tucker — who had been appointed professor of 
Moral Philosophy at Charlottesville — Jefferson seemed 
to regain his youth in getting the University into opera- 
tion. “Everything was looked into, everything was or- 
dered by him. He suggested the remedy for every diffi- 
culty, and made the selection in every choice of expedients. 
Two or three times a week he rode down to the establish- 
ment to give orders to the Proctor, and to watch the prog- 
ress of the work still unfinished.” His cheerfulness and 
vigour were the more remarkable that he was sorely op- 
pressed by financial troubles. In endeavouring to save a 
friend from the crash of 1819 he became involved in a 
heavy liability, which forced him to think of selling his 
property; but the value of agricultural land had fallen 
enormously in all the neighbourhood, owing partly to the 
protection of manufacturers at the expense of farmers, 
partly to the rush of pioneers into the virgin lands of the 
west. But, as we learn from Tucker, his old habits of 
hospitality were not relinquished. “His invitations to 
the professors and their families were frequent, and every 
Sunday some four or five of the students dined with him. 

At these times he generally ate by himself in a small re- 


[ 563 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


cess connected with the dining room; but saving at meals 
sat and conversed with the company as usual.’ The Uni- 
versity was frequented by visitors, who seldom failed to 
call at Monticello, ‘““where they often passed the day, and 
sometimes several days.” In the duties of Rector Jef- 
ferson forgot his cares and anxieties. His sun was setting 
in a soft and mellow radiance. He preserved to the end 
what his overseer Bacon called ‘the Jefferson temper’ — 
all music and sunshine. In one of his happiest moods he 
addressed words of good counsel to a young namesake, 
with six precepts or commandments and ten canons after 
the fashion of Polonius’s advice to Laertes. The six 
precepts would have astonished those New England pul- 
pits which had thundered so often against Jeffersonian 
infidelity. They ran: “1. Adore God. 2. Reverence 
and cherish your parents. 3. Love your neighbour as 
yourself, your country more than yourself. 4. Be just. 
5. Be true. 6. Murmur not at the ways of Providence.” 
Among the maxims of prudence two may be quoted — 
“We never repent of having eaten too little,’ and ‘Take 
things by the smooth handle.’ He also wrote out for the 
boy “the portrait of a good man, by the most sublime of 
poets.” It was Tate and Brady’s rendering of the Fif- 
teenth Psalm, “Who is the Happy Man?” 


"Tis he whose every thought and deed by rules of virtue moves; 
Whose generous tongue disdains to speak the thing his heart disproves. 
Who never did a slander forge, his neighbour’s fame to wound; 

Nor hearken to a false report, by malice whisper’d round. 

Who vice in all its pomp and power, can treat with just neglect; 

And piety, though clothed in rags, religiously respect. 

Who to his plighted vows and trust has ever firmly stood; 

And though he promise to his loss, he makes his promise good. 
Whose soul in usury disdains his treasure to employ; 

Whom no rewards can ever bribe the guiltless to destroy. 


[ 564 | 


The Curtain Falls 


The man, who, by this steady course, has happiness insur’d, 
When earth’s foundations shake, shall stand, by Providence secur’d. 

In the summer of 1825 his health began to give way, and 
when La Fayette, before leaving the States, came to Mon- 
ticello to say good-bye, he found his friend on a couch suf- 
fering much pain. La Fayette conferred with Jefferson’s 
physician, and on returning to Paris sent a supply of drugs 
“which would have been sufficient for twenty patients.” 
On this occasion the University gave a public dinner to 
La Fayette; but Jefferson was too ill to be present. In 
the autumn, when he got better for a while, he was much 
upset by some disorders among the students. They were 
called together, and the Rector addressed them. The of- 
fenders confessed; some were expelled, and discipline 
was restored. 

At the Presidential elections Jefferson preferred J. Q. 
Adams to Andrew Jackson; but when the President’s 
message appeared in December, 1825, he was so alarmed 
at the progress of centralisation that he wrote to Madi- 
son, and actually drafted for his consideration a “solemn 
Declaration and Protest’? which he thought they might 
get adopted by the Legislature of Virginia. This docu- 
ment recited the compact between the States and the 
Federal government, and declared that in claiming and 
exercising the right to construct roads, canals, etc., the 
Federal government was usurping powers belonging to the 
States. If the States wished internal improvements to be 
effected by the Federal government, the General Assembly 
of Virginia would consent that the constitution should be 
amended for that purpose. 

Among other visitors to the University and Monticello 
in 1825 were some young English aristocrats and politi- 
cians, including Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby, and 


[ 565 | 


. Thomas Jefferson 


John Evelyn Denison, who was to become Speaker of 
the House of Commons. On returning home Denison 
sent a present of books to the University and a letter, in 
which he informed Jefferson that the study of Anglo-Saxon 
was reviving in England. Replying on November g, 1825, 
Jefferson indulged in a disquisition on the subject, which 
shows with what ardour he had kept up this favourite 
hobby, and how keenly he had enjoyed Denison’s visit. 
He maintains that Anglo-Saxon is merely an early dialect 
of English — the earliest we happen to possess of the many 
shades of mutation by which the language has tapered 
down to its modern form. The grammar had changed very 
little, and he regretted that Anglo-Saxon scholars had tried 
to give this first dialect of English too learned a form, by 
mounting it on all the scaffolding of Greek and Latin and 
loading it with declensions, conjugations, etc. Strip it 
of its English black letter, reform its uncouth orthography, 
and assimilate it to modern English, as we do Piers Plow- 
man or Chaucer, and then after regaining a few lost words 
we understand it as we do them. By way of example Jef- 
ferson gives in his own orthography the Anglo-Saxon of 
the Lord’s Prayer to show how near it is to modern Eng- 
lish. His version begins: — “Father our, thou tha art 
in heavenum, si thine name y-hallowed.”’ He observes 
that there is but a single word — ‘temptation’ — in our 
version of the prayer which is not Anglo-Saxon. The 
word ‘trespasses’ from the French might as well have been 
translated by the Anglo-Saxon ‘guilts.’ By simplifying 
Anglo-Saxon he hoped to encourage its study. Besides, 
as he reminds Denison, their Anglo-Saxon ancestors had 
no fixed orthography. “To produce a given sound every- 
one jumbled the letters together according to his unlet- 
tered notion of their power; and all jumbled them dif- 


[ 566 | 


The Curtain Falls 


ferently, just as would be done at this day were a dozen 
peasants, who have learned the alphabet but have never 
read, desired to write the Lord’s Prayer.’’ Hence the 
varied modes of spelling by which the Anglo-Saxons tried 
to express the same sound. “‘The word many, for example, 
was spelled in twenty different ways; yet we cannot sup- 
pose that they were twenty different words, or that they 
had twenty different ways of pronouncing the same word. 
. . . We must drop in pronunciation the superfluous con- 
sonants and give to the remaining letters their present 
English sound,” which was as likely to be right as any 
other. Jefferson’s scientific zeal for philology, and a true 
feeling for the wealth and resources of the English lan- 
guage, appear in another paragraph of this remarkable 
letter : — 


“Tt is much to be wished that the publication of the present County 
dialects of England should go on. It will restore to us our language in 
all its shades of variation. It will incorporate into the present one all 
the riches of our ancient dialects; and what a store this will be may 
be seen by running the eye over the county glossaries, and observing 
the words we have lost by abandonment and disuse, which in sound 
and sense are inferior to nothing we have retained. When these local 
vocabularies are published and digested together into a single one, it is 
probable we shall find that there is not a word in Shakespeare which 
is not now in use in some of the counties in England, from whence we 
may obtain its truesense. ... Itis not that I am merely an enthusi- 
ast for palaeology. I set equal value on the beautiful engraftments we 
have borrowed from Greece and Rome; and I am equally a friend to 


the encouragement of a judicious neology. A language cannot be too 
rich.” 


His hope of a dialect dictionary has since been realised. 
So too has his demand for a dictionary showing the deri- 
vation of English words from their Saxon roots. He also 
wanted ‘“‘an elaborate history of the English language.” A 


[567 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


time would come when American scholars would be able 
to co-operate with their English brethren, but as yet lit- 
erature was not a distinct profession in the young society 
of the New World, whose first object was bread and cov- 
ering, science being ‘‘secondary and subsequent.” 

A week or two later the philologist had turned mechanic. 
For the benefit of an American correspondent who was 
investigating dry docks, Jefferson described, and sketched, 
a model lock dock which he had had made for exhibition 
during his presidency at Washington. 

In the closing months of his life Jefferson’s letters 
show no sign of enfeebled faculties. His reasoning is as 
masculine, his vocabulary as copious, his metaphors as 
bold as ever. One of the last books he read was a life of 
Richard Henry Lee by his grandson. Here is Jefferson’s 
comment to an old friend: ‘Eloquent, bold, and ever 
watchful at his post, of which his biographer omits no 
proof, I am not certain whether the friends of George 
Mason, of Patrick Henry, yourself, and even of General 
Washington, may not reclaim some feathers of the plu- 
mage given him, noble as was his proper and original coat.” 
There is enough in these few words to give life and colour 
to a whole review. Then we have a letter to Giles in which 
the veteran is roused to indignation by the new economics. 
The protectionists, he cries, called it ‘regulation of com- 
merce’ to take the earnings of depressed agriculture and 
put them into the pockets of flourishing manufacturers, 
while the “‘moneyed incorporations . . . under the guise 
and cloak of their favoured branches of manufactures, 
commerce, and navigation, were riding and ruling over 
the plundered plowmen and beggared yeomanry.” But 
what hurt him almost more was that “‘we were obliged 
the last year to receive shameful Latinists into the classical 


[ 568 | 


The Curtain Falls 


school of the University, such as we will certainly refuse 
as soon as we can get from better schools a sufficiency of 
those properly instructed to form a class. We must get 
rid of this Connecticut Latin, of this barbarous confusion 
of long and short syllables, which renders doubtful whether 
we are listening to a reader of Cherokee, Shawnee, Iro- 
quois, or what.”’ 

Though he complained of habitual ill health, yet on 
February 17, 1826, “seeing the overwhelming vote of the 
House of Representatives against giving us another dol- 
lar,” so he wrote to Madison, “I rode to the University 
and desired Mr. B. to engage in nothing new, to stop 
everything on hand which could be done without, and to 
employ all his force and funds in finishing the circular 
room for the books and the anatomical theatre.” Jef- 
ferson’s principles of toleration deserted him when he 
thought of the Law professorship, and of Chief Justice 
Marshall in the background at Richmond. In the selec- 
tion of our law professor, he said, ““we must be rigorously 
attentive to his political principles.’”’ Before the Revolu- 
tion, Coke on Littleton was the universal elementary book 
of Law students, “and a sounder Whig never wrote, nor 
of profounder learning in the orthodox doctrines of the 
British constitution. . . . You remember also that our 
lawyers were then all Whigs. But when his black letter 
text and uncouth but cunning learning got out of fashion, 
and the honeyed Mansfieldism of Blackstone became the 
students’ hornbook, from that moment that profession 
(the nursery of our Congress) began to slide into toryism, 
and nearly all the young brood of lawyers now are of that 
hue.” It was in ¢heir seminary that the vestal flame must 
be kept alive to spread anew over Virginia and the sister 
states. This letter to his old friend ends very sadly on his 


[ 569 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


financial misfortunes. He had made an application to the 
Legislature of Virginia for power to dispose of some of his 
lands by way of lottery; if that were refused, he would 
have to sell Monticello and move to Bedford “where I 


have not even a log hut to put my head into.” He begs 


Madison to look after the University when he is gone, and 
not to abandon the task of vindicating to posterity the 
political course they had pursued together during their 
half century of friendship. To myself, he concludes, you 
have been a pillar of support through life. “Take care of 
me when dead, and be assured that I shall leave with you 
my last affections.” 

At the end of March he answered a letter from President 
J. Q. Adams, who had sent him a copy of his Message 
and some documents about maritime law. Jefferson de- 
scribes the efforts which he had made with Franklin and 
John Adams to establish freedom of the seas after 
the achievement of independence. A month later the 
Rector bestirred himself about a school of botany for the 
University, and wrote to Dr. John Emmett, the Professor 
of Natural History, instructing him to select a site of six 
acres for a botanical garden. “I have diligently exam- 
ined all our grounds with this view and think that that on 
the public road, at the upper corner of our possessions 
where the stream issues from them, has more of the req- 
uisite qualities than any other spot we possess.”. . . He 
desires the ground to be enclosed with a serpentine brick 
wall, seven feet high. Serpentine walls were a device of 
Jefferson’s to save bricks; he calculated that this wall 
would take 80,000 bricks and would cost $800. 

The Legislature of Virginia granted Jefferson permis- 
sion to dispose of his farms by lottery; but when the news 
went abroad that the author of the Declaration of In- 


[ 570 ] 


The Curtain Falls 


dependence, the most famous republican statesman of 
his time, was likely to be driven by debt and distress from 
hospitable Monticello, a movement sprang up for his 
relief. New York raised $8,500, Philadelphia $5,000, and 
Baltimore $3,000. The lottery was suspended. Jefferson 
was not only grateful, but proud of his countrymen’s lib- 
erality. “No cent of this,” he cried, “is wrung from the 
taxpayer. It is a pure and unsolicited offering of love.” 

As June wore on life began to ebb. Preparations were 
in hand all over the states to celebrate the fiftieth anniver- 
sary of American independence. An invitation came to 
him to attend the function at Washington on the fourth 
of July. His last, or nearly his last, letter in reply is not 
unworthy of the author and the occasion. 


TO MR. WEIGHTMAN 


Monticello, June 24, 1826. 
Respected Sir: 

The kind invitation I received from you on the part of the citizens of 
the city of Washington to be present with them at their celebration on 
the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as one of the sur- 
viving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and the fate of 
the world, is most flattering to myself, and heightened by the honour- 
able accompaniment proposed for the comfort of such a journey. It 
adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a per- 
sonal participation in the rejoicings of that day. But acquiescence is 
a duty, under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted 
to control. I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and ex- 
changed there congratulations personally with the small band, the 
remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in 
the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between 
submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consola- 
tory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and 
prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made. May it be to the 
world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, 
but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under 


[571] 


Thomas Jefferson 


which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind 
themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-govern- 
ment. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right 
to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All 
eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread 
of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable 
truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their 
backs, nor a favoured few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legiti- 
mately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. 
For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our 
recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. 

I will ask permission here to express the pleasure with which I should 
have met my ancient neighbours of the city of Washington and its 
Vicinities, with whom I passed so many years of a pleasing social inter- 
course; an intercourse which so much relieved the anxieties of the pub- 
lic cares, and left impressions so deeply engraved in my affections, as 
never to be forgotten. With my regret that ill health forbids me the 
gratification of an acceptance, be pleased to receive for yourself, and 
those for whom you write, the assurance of my highest respect and 
friendly attachments. 


Tu. JEFFERSON. 

On the same day Jefferson sent for Dr. Dunglison. Both 
patient and physician agreed that the end was near. A 
Philadelphia friend had entreated Jefferson to send for the 
celebrated Dr. Physic of that city; but Jefferson refused 
saying, ““I have got a Dr. Physic of my own —I have 
entire confidence in Dr. Dunglison.’’ He would not have 
any other medical man called in. The good doctor stayed 
at Monticello, and some of his notes have been preserved. 
Until the second of July, though his strength was dimin- 
ishing, Jefferson’s mind remained clear; after that he was 
affected with stupor. In one of his last wakeful intervals, 
at seven o'clock on the evening of July 3, he asked the doc- 
tor: “Is it the Fourth?’ and received the reply, ‘It soon 
will be.” That same night Nicholas Trist, who had married 
one of the granddaughters, was sitting beside the bed when 


[572] 


The Curtain Falls 


Jefferson whispered inquiringly: ‘This is the Fourth?’ 
It was still an hour from midnight, but Trist rather than 
disappoint him nodded assent. “Ah,” he murmured, as 
an expression came over his countenance which said, 
“Just as I wished.” 

His favourite grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, 
who watched by the bedside, has given us the best 
account of these last days. Jefferson showed the ut- 
most consideration for all. His daughter was with him 
during the day; but he would not permit her to sit up at 
night. He suffered no pain, and until the last few days 
conversed freely and gave directions as to his private 
affairs. ““His manner was that of a person going on a 
necessary journey, evincing neither satisfaction nor re- 
gret.”’ His mind kept recurring to the scenes of the Rev- 
olution. He remarked that the curtains of his bed had 
been purchased from the first cargo that arrived after the 
peace of 1782. On the last night he sat up in his sleep, and 
went through the forms of writing; spoke of the Com- 
mittee of Safety, saying it ought to be warned. At four 
A.M. he was conscious, and again at eleven, but after mid- 
day on July 4, at about ten minutes to one, he ceased to 
breathe and Thomas Jefferson Randolph closed his eyes. 
By a coincidence which has struck the imagination of their 
countrymen, John Adams also passed away at sunset 
on that same Fourth of July, the Fiftieth Anniversary 
of Independence. His last recorded words were: 
“Thomas Jefferson still lives.” 

A few days before his death, when young Randolph ex- 
pressed a hope that he was somewhat better, Jefferson said, 
“Do not imagine for a moment that I feel the smallest 
solicitude about the result; I am like an old watch, with 
a pinion worn out here and a wheel there, until it can go 


[573 | 


Thomas Jefferson 


no longer.” On hearing someone mention the name of 
the minister whose church he attended he remarked, “‘I 
have no objection to see him as a kind and good neigh- 
bour.” His parting with the members of his family was 
calm and composed. He spoke constantly with deep af- 
fection and admiration of Madison. Their friendship had 
indeed been extraordinary — they were born, they lived, 
and they died within twenty-five miles of one another. 
There is a touching note from Madison to Trist written 
two days after Jefferson’s death from Montpellier: 


“We are more than consoled for the loss by the gain to him, and by 
the assurance that he lives and will live in the memory and gratitude 
of the wise and good as a luminary of science, as a votary of liberty, 
as a model of patriotism, and as a benefactor of the human kind. In 
these characters I have known him, and not less in the virtues and 
charms of social life, for a period of fifty years, during which there was 
not an interruption or a diminution of mutual confidence and cordial 
friendship for a single moment in a single instance.” 4 


Speaking on his deathbed of the many bitter calumnies 
which political and religious enemies had uttered against 
his public and private character, Jefferson said he had not 
considered them as abusing him, whom they had never 
known. They had created an imaginary being, clothed it 
with odious attributes, to whom they had given the name 
of Thomas Jefferson; and it was against this creature of 
the imagination that their anathemas had been levelled. 

It is clear from Jefferson’s will that he believed his prop- 
erty would be adequate to pay off all debts and to leave a 
sufficiency for his beloved daughter, Martha Randolph, 
and her family; though he recognised that her husband, 
Thomas Mann Randolph, was insolvent. He commended 


1 Their friendship really commenced when Jefferson, being twenty-three years 
old, was consulted on a course of study for Madison, then a boy of fifteen. 


[574] 


The Curtain Falls 


the care of his sister, Anne Scott, to his daughter, left his 
gold-mounted walking staff to Madison, and a gold watch 
to each of his grandchildren. He left his remaining books 
partly to the University of Virginia, partly to his grand- 
sons in law, Nicholas P. Trist and Joseph Coolidge. He 
emancipated several of his negro slaves, and left them 
means to practice their trades and callings. 

In her Domestic Life of Thomas Fefferson Sarah 
Randolph alludes to the constant and peculiar devotion 
of Thomas Jefferson Randolph to his grandfather : — 


“When he took charge of his grandfather’s affairs young Randolph 
threw himself into the breach, and, from that time until Mr. Jefferson’s 
death, made it the aim of his life as far as possible to alleviate his finan- 
cial condition, and to this end devoted all the energy and ardor of his 
youth as well as his own private fortune. I have lying before me an 
account signed by Mr. Jefferson a few weeks before his death, which 
shows that his grandson had interposed himself between him and his 
creditors to the amount of $58,536. Another paper before me, signed 
by Mr. Jefferson’s commission merchant, shows that he, the commis- 
sion merchant, was guaranteed by Mr. Randolph against any loss 
from endorsation, over-draught, or other responsibility which he had 
incurred, or might incur, on his grandfather’s account; that these 
responsibilities were all met by him, and that nevertheless, by his direc- 
tions, Mr. Jefferson’s crops were placed in the hands of the commission 
merchant on Mr. Jefferson’s account, and were drawn out solely to his 
order. When, at the winding up of Mr. Jefferson’s estate after his 
death, it was found that his debts exceeded the value of his property 
by $40,000, this same grandson pledged himself to make good the deficit, 
which, by his untiring and unaided efforts, he succeeded in doing in 
the course of some years, having in that time paid all that was due to 


Jefferson’s creditors.” 


To this favourite grandson, the worthy scion of a noble 
stock, we are indebted for a portrait of his grandfather 
which bears all the marks of nature and truth: ‘Mr. 
Jefferson’s stature was commanding — six feet two and a 


[575 ] 


Thomas Jefferson 


half inches in height, well formed, indicating strength, 
activity, and robust health, his carriage erect; step firm 
and elastic, which he preserved to his death; his temper, 
naturally strong, under perfect control; his courage cool 
and impassive. No one ever knew him exhibit trepida- 
tion. His moral courage of the highest order — his will 
firm and inflexible. It was remarked of him that he never 
abandoned a plan, principle, or a friend.” Riding on 
horseback was his favourite recreation, and he went on 
with it until three weeks from his death. Even in his last 
year he would not allow a servant to accompany him; for, 
as he said, he liked to ride and muse alone. On horseback 
he was bold and fearless. From his easy and confident 
seat men saw at a glance that he was master of his steed, 
usually the finest blood-horse of Virginia, which he sub- 
dued to his will on the slightest sign of restiveness. His 
habits, we are told, were regular and systematic. A 
miser of his time, he rose always at dawn, wrote and read 
until breakfast, breakfasted early, dined from three to 
four, retired at nine, and went to bed between ten and 
eleven. He said during his last illness that the sun had not 
caught him in bed for fifty years. He always made his 
own fire, carrying out his favourite maxim, ‘Never trouble 
another to do what you can do for yourself.’ His manners, 
wrote his grandson, were of the polished school of the Co- 
lonial government, — courteous and considerate to all, 
never violating any of those minor conventional obser- 
vances which constitute the well-bred gentleman. When 
Randolph as a lad was riding out with Jefferson they met 
a negro who bowed. Jefferson returned the bow. Ran- 
dolph did not. “Turning to me he asked: Do you permit 
a negro to be more of a gentleman than yourself ?”’ Once 
during his presidency he was returning on horseback from 


[ 576 | 


The Curtain Falls 


Charlottesville with a company of friends whom he had 
invited to dinner. Most of them were ahead of him. 
When Jefferson reached a stream over which there was 
no bridge, a man standing there asked to be taken up be- 
hind and carried over. After they had crossed Jefferson’s 
companion asked the man why he had allowed the other 
horsemen to go by without: asking them for this favour. 
He replied: “‘From their looks I did not like to ask them. 
The old gentleman looked as if he would do it and I asked 
him.” He was much surprised to learn that he had ridden 
behind the President of the United States. 

There is a note in Tucker’s biography setting forth the 
descendants of Jefferson who were living at the time of his 
death. They consisted of his daughter, Martha Wayles 
Randolph, eleven grandchildren and fourteen great grand- 
children. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the eldest of his 
grandchildren, had at that time six children; another 
grandchild was Ellen Coolidge who had married Joseph 
Coolidge of Boston; a third, Virginia Trist, had married 
Nicholas P. Trist, an intimate friend of Andrew Jackson. 
Trist’s memoranda abound in recollections of Jefferson’s 
table talk and of Madison’s conversations. 

Two days before his death Jefferson told his daughter 
that in a certain drawer she would find something in- 
tended for her. She found a few touching verses composed 
by himself and entitled A Death-bed Adieu from Th. J. to 
M. R. Among his papers were found written on the torn 
back of an old letter directions for his grave : — 


“Could the dead feel any interest in monuments or other remem- 
brances of them when, as Anacreon says, 


"Odiyn 8 KevooucBa. 
Konus éc0réwv AvOevrwv 


[577] 


Thomas Jefferson 


the following would be to my manes the most gratifying: on the grave 
a plain die or cube of three feet without any mouldings surmounted by 
an obelisk of six feet height, each of a single stone; on the faces of the 
obelisk the following inscriptions and not a word more: 


Here was buried 
Thomas Jefferson, 
Author of the Declaration of American Independence, 
Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, 
And Father of the University of Virginia; 
because by these as testimonials that I have lived I wish most to be 
remembered.” 


The obelisk, he added, was “to be of the coarse stone of 
which my columns are made, that no one might be tempted 
hereafter to destroy it for the value of the materials.” 
His bust by Cerrachi “might be given to the University, 
if they would place it in the dome room of the Rotunda.” 
Jefferson was buried in the graveyard of Monticello be- 
tween his wife and his daughter Maria Eppes. Near by 
was afterwards laid his eldest daughter Martha. The 
graves were easily seen through a high iron grating, that 
there might be no excuse for forcing open the gates which 
closed the entrance to the graveyard. But the gates were 
broken open again and again by the vulgar curiosity of the 
unconscionable sight-seeker. In 1871, when Sarah Ran- 
dolph wrote, the granite obelisk had been chipped away 
until it stood a misshapen column. A replica has since 
been erected in its place, and ere long Monticello, which 
was ruthlessly sold up and alienated from the family a 
few months after Jefferson’s death to satisfy his debts, 
will be reclaimed for the nation and tastefully restored as 
a Memorial of its greatest republican and democratic 
statesman. | 


[578 | 


INDEX 


A Assumption of State debts, 293. 
Austin, Benjamin, 489. 
Adams, Abigail, 215. 
Adams, Henry, his history quoted, B 
377: 
Adams, John, 91, 118, 124, 126-7, 215, | Bache, 353. 
269, 275-6, 380-1 ; defeated for Pres- | Bacon, 1. 
ident, 371, 373; elected President, | Bacon, Edmund, 28. 
336 sqq.; his Cabinet, 339-40, 370 | Baines, Edward, 436. 
sqq.;_  Jefferson’s correspondence | Bank money, 473-4. 
with, 455 sqq.; re-elected Vice-| Bank of the U.S. Al, 270, 304 Sqq., 475. 
President, 289; Vice-President, 239; | Barbary pirates, 387. 
warlike measures of, 343 sqq. Baring, Sir Francis, 437. 
Adams, John Quincy, 276, 384, 443, | Bastille, storming of, 231. 
516, 554, 562; elected President, | Bathurst, Lord, 434. 


565. Beer, 487. 
Adams, Samuel, 39, 522. Bentham, Jeremy, 56. 
Aland, Fortescue, 35. Benton, Senator, 254. 
Albemarle County, 8, 15, 46, 545. Berlin decrees, 432, 437. 
Alderman, Dr. Edwin, 550. Bimetallic ratio, 203, 255. 
Alexander, Czar of Russia, 425. Blackstone, 35, 569. 
Alfred the Great, 36. Blockade, 433 sqq., 438. 
Alien Act, 348 sqq. Blue Ridge, 8, 184. 
American Independence, soth Anni-| Bolingbroke, 27, 529-3o. 
versary of, 571-2. Bonaparte (see Napoleon). 
American towns, size of, 376. Books, duties on, 532. 
Ames, Fisher, 442. Bookstalls of Paris, 222. 
Amsterdam, 296. Boston, 60. 
Anas of Jefferson, 266 sqq., 304. Boston Port Bill, 65, 72. 
Anglo-Saxon, 556, 566 sqq. Boston, siege of, 85, 103. 
Annapolis, Convention of, 241. Botany, 260 sqq. 
Antediluvian bones, 334, 341. Botetourt, Governor, 46 sqq. 
Antifederalists, 237-8. Boycott of British goods, 49, 51, 59, 78, 
Aram, Eugene, his defence, 38. 81. 
Architect, Jefferson as, 500-1. Bracton, 478. 
Arnold, Benedict, 97. Braddock,. 15. 
Arnold, Colonel, his raid on Richmond, | Brienne, Lomenie de, 227. 
159. Brougham, Lord, 26, 436. 
Assignats, 297. Brunswick, Duke of, 279. 


[579 ] 


Index 


Bryan, John Stewart, 179. 

Buffon, Count de, 182, 187 sqq. 

Burk, John, Historian of Virginia, 
27, 179. 

Burke, Edmund, 55, 99, I1oI, 273 sqq. 

Burns, Robert, 82. 

Burr, Aaron, 371 sqq., 407 note, 419 sqq. 

Burwell, Miss Rebecca, 30. 


G 


Cabell, Joseph, 543 sqq. 

Cabell, W. H., 422. 

Cabinet Practice of Jefferson, 426. 

Callender, 387. 

Calonne, 226-7. 

Calumnies, Federalist, 369. 

Camden, Battle of, 152. 

Camden, Lord, 57. 

Camillus, 326-334. 

Canada, Invasion of, 465. 

Canning, George, 423, 433 sqq.; his 
liberal diplomacy, 538 sqq. 

Canova, 489. 

“Capability” Brown, 219. 

Capital cities captured in war, 178. 

Caraccioli, 386. 

Carolina, North, 369. 

Carr, Dabney, 54. 

Cartwright, Major, 555. 

Castlereagh, 452, 538. 

Catalogue, Jefferson’s, 507. 

Catesby’s American Birds, 17. 

Censorship, press, 349. 

Centralisation, 388-9. 

Ceremony abolished by Jefferson, 384- 
5-6. 

Champlain, Lake, 258, 261. 

Chandler, J. A. C., 24. 

Channing, Edward, 79. 

Charles the First, 58. 

Charleston, 314. 

Charleston captured by British, 145. 

Charlottesville, 9, 545-6. 

Charlottesville surprised by Tarleton, 
168. 

Chatham, Lord, 86, 89. 


Chesapeake Affair, 421 sqq. 

Chess, 262. 

Cicero, 507. 

Christianity, 401. 

Christianity and Common Law, 35 sqq. 

Cincinnati, 323. 

Clarendon, 61. 

Clark, George Rogers, 150. 

Clarke, William, 397. 

Classics, value of, 522, 551. 

Clay, Henry, 32, 459, 453-4, 554. 

Clayton, the Botanist, 186. 

Clinton, General, 144 sqq., 165 sqq. 

Clinton, George, 289, 316. 

Clock devised by Jefferson, 462. 

Cobbett, William, 367. 

Cobden, Richard, 208, 389. 

Coke, 34. 

Colonies, American, 
61-2. 

Collier, Admiral, 142. 

Commerce, foreign, of the U.S., 255 sqq. 

Commerce, neutral, 320-1. 

Committees of Correspondence, 65. 

Committee to prepare Declaration of 
Independence, 119. 

Common Law and Christianity, 35 sqq. 

Common Law, History of, 478-9. 

Common Sense, 530. 

Confederacy, 236. 

Connecticut, Blue Laws of, 479. 

Constitution, American, 236 sqq.; its 
interpretation, 304 sqq. 

Constitution, Construction of, 392-3. 

Construction strict, 304. 

Constructionists, loose, 516. 

Continental Congress, 79, 90. 

Convention at Philadelphia, 236 sqq. 

Convention, Madison’s notes on, 358. 

Cook, Captain, Igo. 

Coolidge, Ellen, 560. 

Coolidge, Joseph, 121. 

Cooper, Thomas, 478, 549. 

Cornwallis, General, 144 sqq., 
sqq., 164 sqq. 

Cornwallis, his plunderings, 170. 

Correa, 527-8. 


population of, 


161 


[ 580 | 


Index 


Corruption, 196. 

Cotton, American, 256. 

Cotton gin, invention of, 525. 

Cotton manufactures, 195. 

Cowpens, Battle of, 158. 

Credit, American, in Amsterdam, 212. 
Credit of United States, 290 sqq. 
Cuba, acquisition of, 540. 

Curtius, 326. 

Customs, revenue of U. S. A., 430. 


D 


Dallas, Secretary of Treasury, 475. 

Danton, 280. 

Davila, Discourses on, 276, 457. 

Dearborn, Henry, 383. 

Debt, American discharge of, 399; 
American, to France, 295 sqq., 300; 
to Holland, 300; certificates bought 
by speculators, 292; of U. S. A., 
290 sqq.; American, 211 sqq., 217; 
American, to British merchants, 300 
sqq.; repudiation of, 302. 

Debt to French officers, 212. 

Decimal system, 199, 463. 

Declaration of Independence, moved 
by delegates of Virginia, 117-8. 

Degeneracy, American, 189. 

De Grasse, Admiral, 148, 172. 

Democracy, Jacksonian, 529; Jeffer- 
sonian, $11, 529. 

Democracy, need for education, 196. 

Democratic Societies, 329. 

Denison, John Evelyn, 566 sqq. 

Dialect dictionary, 567. 

Dickinson, John, 67, 92, 117. 

Diet, Jefferson’s, 521. 

Doddridge, 15. 

Dollar currency, chosen by Jefferson, 
200 sqq. 

Dominion, the Old, 6, 8. 

Drake, 1. 

Duane, 458-9. 

Dunglison, Dr., 550, 572. 

Dunmore, Lord, Governor, 85-6, 90, 
96, 128. 


Dutch loan to U. S. A., 296. 


E 


East India Company, 60. 

Eckenrode, H. J., 110, 147, 173. 

Edgehill, 14. 

Education in Virginia, 134. 

Elba, Napoleon’s return from, 486-7. 

Elizabeth, Queen, 1. 

Elks, 16. 

Embargo, Jefferson’s policy of, 438 
sqq.- 

Embargo policy, 322. 

Embargo, repeal of, 442-3. 

England, friendship with, 493. 

English dialects, 566 sqq. 

Entanglements with Europe, 537. 

Eppes, Francis, 91, 251 note. 

Eppes, J. W., 251 note, 467. 

Eppington, 251 note. 

Equality of Opportunity, 196. 

Era of Good Feeling, 514. 

Essex case, 409. 

Essex Junto, 442, 563. 

Excise, 323. 

Expedition of Lewis and Clark, 397 sqq. 

Exports of U. S. A., 429-30. 


F 


Fauquier, Governor of Virginia, 26 sqq. 

Federalist Party, origin of, 265. 

Federalist, the, 238. 

Female education, 518. 

Fenno, John, 277, 286. 

Filmer’s Patriarcha, 508. 

Fiscal policy, 256. 

Florida, 408, 412-13. 

Flourens, his experiments, 561-2. 

Fourth of July, 572-3. 

Fox, Charles James, 408, 415. 

France, alliance with, 143. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 57, 93, 125, 143, 
188-9, 207, 253, 333- 

Frederic the Great, 207. 

Freedom of opinion, 140. 

Freedom of the Press, 406. 


[ 581 | 


Index 


Freedom of the seas, 207-8. 

Free Trade, 256, 485. 

French Republic, proclaimed, 
declares war on Britain, 310. 

French Revolution, 224 sqq. 

Freneau, 277, 282, 286. 

Fur Trade, 3o1. 


280; 


G 


Gage, General, 86. 

Galileo, 137. 

Gallatin, Albert, 294, 328-9, 383, 409, 
418, 454. 

Gardens, English, 218. 

Gassendi, 384. 

Gates, General, 143, 145-6, 152. 

Gazette, National, 277. 

Gazette, United States, 277, 281, 284. 

Genét, Edmond, 299, 311, 313 sqq. 

George, Lake, 258, 261-2. 

George the Third, 33, 42, 56, 57 sqq., 
69 sqq., 98, 114, 128-9, 144, 215, 274. 

Georges, the Four, toasted, 315. 

Georgia, war in, 145. 

German mercenaries, 102. 

Gerry, Elbridge, 44, 344-5, 358 sqq. 

Ghent, Peace of, 484. 

Giles, W. B., 320, 325. 

Girardin, Louis Hue, 26, 179. 

Gold debts paid in paper, 302. 

Goochland, 8. 

Government, cost of, 197. 

Granger, Gideon, 383. 

Greek literature, 521-2. 

Greek, pronunciation of, 520. 

Greene, General Nathanael, 146, 153, 
161 sqq.; life of, 534. 

Grenville, George, 39. 

Grimm, Baron, 491. 


H 


Habeas Corpus in Virginia, 354. 

Hall, Francis, visits Monticello, 499- 
500. 

Halleck, Fitz Greene, 515 


Hamilton, Alexander, 55, 146, 238, 240 
Sqq-, 248, 264 sqq., 323, 339, 371 sqq., 
498, 557, 562. 

Hamilton, Alexander, funds public 
debt, 290 sqq.; his finance, 328; 
his military ambitions, 361, 364. 

Hamilton, Alexander, life of, 175, 535. 

Hamilton, governor of Detroit, 149-50. 

Hamiltonians, 344. 

Hammond, George, 301 sqq. 

Hampden, John, 247. 

Harrington, James, 80; 
509. 

Harvard, 531, 550. 

Hayti, 359, 392. 

Henry, Patrick, 20, 33 sqq., 41 sqq., 
48, 66, 83, 84, 85, 136, 141, 174, 366. 

Henry, Patrick, elected governor of 
Virginia, I10 sqq., 237, 243. 

Henry, Patrick, Wirt’s life of, 517. 

Hereditary chambers, Igo. 

Hereditary principle, 245. 

Hollis, Thomas, 509. 

Holy Alliance, 538. 

Homer, 506. 

Horses, wild, 353. 

Houdin, 489. 

Howe, General, 128. 

Hull, General, 454, 465. 

Hume’s History of England, 556. 


I 


his Oceana, 


Ideology, 467. 

Imports of United States, 430. 
Impressment in Virginia, 156. 
Inauguration of Jefferson, 379. 
Independence Hall, 125. 
Indian lands, 13. 

Indians, Red, 2, 15, 16, 398, 401. 
Indian vocabularies, 369. 
Interest on debts, 303. 
Internal improvements, 418. 
Isle of Wight, 204, 246. 


J 


Jackson, Andrew, 484. 
James the First, 3. 


[ 582 | 


Index 


Jamestown, 2, 7, 21. 

Jay, John, 90, 94, 250, 325, 326 sqq. 

Jefferson, Maria, 251 note, 258, 319; 
death of, 402. 

Jefferson, Martha, 204 sqq., 258, 319, 
$74; marries T. M. Randolph, 
253. 

Jefferson, Peter, 10 sqq. 

Jefferson, Thomas, ancestors of, 6; 
autobiography, 9; birth and boy- 
hood, 8 sqq.; at college, 20; his 
religious opinions, 36-7; practice at 
Virginia Bar, 44 sqq.; marries 
Martha Skelton, 51; family arms, 
52; his horses, 53; law reformer, 
133 sqq.; Governor of Virginia, 141 
sqq.; retires from Governorship, 
172; writes Notes on Virginia, 182; 
accepts mission to France, 204 sqq.; 
visits Holland and Germany, 212; 
visits England, 215 sqq.; visits Italy, 
221; on the American Constitution, 
238 sqq.; returns home from France, 
246; appointed Secretary of State, 
251 sqq.; his quarrel with Hamilton, 
264 sqq.; his views on public debt, 295 
sqq.; Foreign Secretary, 308 sqq.; 
his law studies, 313 sqq.; retirement 
to Monticello, 319 sqq.; elected 
Vice-President, 336; his Vice-Presi- 
dency, 338 sqq.; elected President 
of U.S. A., 372-3; his First Admin- 
istration, 376 sqq.; his Cabinet, 383; 
elected President a second time, 400; 
his Second Administration, 405; 
relinquishes office, 444-5; consulted 
by President Monroe on foreign 
policy, 536 sqq.; builds University 
of Virginia, 542-51; appointed 
Rector, 548; his sunny temper, 564; 
his financial misfortunes, 570-1; his 
indignation against Protectionists, 
568; his last days, 571-3; his will, 
574; portrait of, 575; his grave and 
epitaph, 578; his descendants, 577. 

Jesus, precepts of, 4o1. 

Johnson, William, 534, 535. 


Jones, Admiral Paul, 297. 
Jonson, Ben, 12. 
Judiciary Act, 389. 


K 


Kentucky Resolutions, 354 sqq., 364. 
Kimball, Fiske, 223. 

King, Rufus, 514. 

King’s Mountain, Battle of, 158. 
Knox, Henry, 248. 

Kosciusko, 173, 454. 


L 


Lafayette, 147, 165 sqq., 210, 224 sqq., 
275, 279, 280, 281, 342-3, 403, 
565. 

Lafayette, his tour in U. S. A., 558. 

Landscape gardener, Jefferson as, 499, 
501-2. 

Lansdowne, first Marquis of, 215. 

Law, John, 472. 

Lecky, W. H., 55. 

Lee, Colonel Henry, 160, 176, 277, 568. 

Lee, R. H., 48, 66, 136, 484. 

Lewis, Meriwether, 397. 

Lexington, Battle of, 85. 

Library of Congress, 502. 

Library of Monticello, 497, 502 sqq. 

Life after death, 562. 

Lincoln, Levi, 383, 408. 

Liverpool, 436, 441. 

Liverpool and the slave trade, 103. 

Liverpool, Earl of, 452. 

Livingston, Robert, 390 sqq. 

Loans and taxes, 470; see Debts. 

Loans, domestic, of U. S. A., 290 sqq. 

Loans, foreign, of U.S. A., 292. 

Logan, Dr., 352, 362. 

London, Bishop of, 7, 33. 

Long, George, 549, 559, 561. 

Lords, House of, 190. 

Louis XVI., 226; execution of, 281. 

Louisiana, extent of, 396-7, 408, 409. 

Louisiana purchase, 390 sqq. 

Lynch, Colonel, 156. 


[ 583 ] 


Index 


M 


Madison, James, 45, 134, 136, 236 sqq., 
270, 277-8, 290, 323 8qq-, 336-8, 355, 
358, 381, 383, 5355 558-9, 570, 574-5. 

Madison, James, character of, 450. 

Madison, James, his Presidency, 446 
sqq. 

Maiden Lane, New York, 253. 

Maison Quarrée, 220. 

Mammoth, the American, 188. 

Mansfield, Lord, 35. 

Manual of Parliamentary Practice, 
340. 

Manufactures, American, 464. 
Manufactures, protection of, 
Hamilton’s report on, 272. 

Marbois, Marquis de, 182. 

Marie Antoinette, 227 sqq., 315. 

Marshall, John, 31, 147, 266, 318, 371, 
419 Sqq., 535, 557, 569. 

Mason, George, IIo, 136. 

Maury, James, 19. 

Mazzei letter, 346, 557. 

Mazzei, Philip, 332. 

Megalonyx, 341. 

Mendel, 11. 

Merry, British Minister, 386. 

Meteorology, 533. 

Midnight appointments, 374, 380. 

Milan decrees, 437. 

Mill, John Stuart, 140. 

Mint, establishment of, 254. 

Miranda, 361. 

Mississippi, 183, 309, 397-8. 

Missouri, 183-4, 397-8. 

Missouri compromise, 524 sqq. 

Monarchism in the U.S. A., 242, 278-9, 
362-3. 

Money, unit of, 200 sqq. 

Monroe Doctrine, 528, 539 sqq. 

Monroe, James, 199, 325, 327, 367, 386, 
391 sqq., 408, 418, 458, 483; his 
administration and character, 514 
sqq. 

Montaigne, 325. 

Montesquieu, 380. 


195; 


Monticello, 9, 14, 50-1, 251-2, 257, 
319-20, 330, 446 sqq.; life at, 455; 
described, 494 sqq.; graveyard of, 
578. 

Monticello, pilgrimages to, 495. 

Monticello, view from terrace, 546. 

Monticello, visit of Lafayette, 558. 

Montmorin, 210, 226, 233. 

Montpellier, 559. 

Morris, Gouverneur, 199, 244, 297 sqq., 
316. 

Morris, Robert, 199. 

Mount Vernon, 257, 262. 

Muhlenberg, General, 155. 


N 


Napoleon, 367-8, 392, 432 sqq., 454, 
482-3; character of, 490; in St. 


Helena, 534. 

Natural Bridge described by Jefferson, 
185. 

Naturalisation, 389. 

Naval warfare, laws of, 436. 

Navigation Laws, 40. 

Navy, American, 198. 

Necker, 228 sqq. 

Negro character, 191. 

Nelson, General Thomas, 106, 155-6, 
158 sqq., 172, 179 sqq. 

Neology, 567. 

Neutrality, American, 311, 344 sqq., 
394-5. 

Neutral Rights, 431 sqq., 438 sqq. 

New Orleans, 392. 

New Orleans, Battle of, 484. 

Newspapers, 520. 

Newspapers, their calumnies, 353. 

Newton, Isaac, 482. 

New York, 253, and speculation, 291. 

New York occupied by Washington, 
117, 

Nicholas, George, 136, 174 sqq., 354. 

Nicholas, Wilson C., 354, 413. 

Nightingales, 222. 

Nismes, 219-20. 

Non-Importation Bill, 322, 414, 432. 


[ 584 | 


Index 


Norfolk, burning of, 104. 

North Carolina, war in, 152. 

North, Lord, 49, 56, 59 note, 86, 143, 
147. 

North, Lord, reply to, 94. 

Notables, Assembly of, 219, 224. 

Novelists, 28. 

Novel reading, 518. 


O 


Ohio River, 184. 

Oliver, F. S., 176, 283. 

O’Meara’s Bonaparte, 534. 

Ontasseté, 16. ; 

Orders in Council, 424, 452. 

Ossian, 28. 

Otis, James, 126. 

P 

Page, John, 30, 54, 141. 

Paine, Thomas, 77, 387, 424, $11, 529- 
30. 

Paine, Thomas, his Common Sense, 
104; his Rights of Man, 274 sqq. 

Palladio, 500. 

Paper money, 330, 523. 

Paper money and confiscation, 471 sqq. 

Paper money, French, 296. 

Paper money in Philadelphia, 142; 
in Virginia, 142, 149, 181; Jefferson 
on, 467 sqq. 

Paris, famine in, 229. 

Parliament, unreformed, of England, 
56. 

Parson’s Case, 33, 34. 

Parties, American, their rise, 265, 306, 
342. 

Partington, Dame, 478 note. 

Patents, 254. 

Peace and the Open Door, 197. 

Peace policy of Jefferson, 343 sqq. 

Peace treaty, infractions of, 301. 

Pendleton, Edmund, 42, 45, 84, 109, 


133, 360. 
Pennsylvania, disturbances in, 323. 


Perceval, 433 sqq., 452. 

Perpetual motion, 466. 

Petrarch and Laura, 222. 

Philadelphia, 257-8, 262. 

Phillips, General, 166. 

Pickering, Timothy, 126, 327, 371, 442, 
531, 556. 

Piedmont Country, 8. 

Pinckney, Charles, 371, 418, 432. 

Pitt, death of, 415. 

Pittsburg, 185. 

Plough, Jefferson’s, 333, 425. 

Pocahontas, Princess, 2, 3, 12. 

Poetry, American, 188. 

Political Economy of War, 463 sqq. 

Polly, case of the, 431. 

Polygraph, 425. 

Pope’s Villa, 218. 

Poplar Forest, 447. 

Population of U. S. A., 297. 

Porcupine’s Gazette, 351, 367. 

Potomac, 184. 

Pounds sterling in America, 202. 

Prayer, the Lord’s, in Anglo-Saxon, 
566. 

Presbyterians, 34. 

President, term of office of, 239. 

Press gangs in England, 102. 

Price, Dr. Richard, 216. 

Priestley, Dr., 101, 215, 367, 457. 

Privateers, French, 343. 

Private property, capture of, 436. 

Prize money, 436. 

Protection, Jefferson on, 195, 568. 

Public accounts, 328. 

Public credit, Hamilton’s report on, 
290. 

Public debt, Jefferson on, 467 sqq. 

Punctuality, 46. 


Q 


Quadrupeds, size of, 187. 
Quincy, Josiah, 451. 


R 
Raids on Virginia, 142 sqq. 


[585 | 


Index 


Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1. 

Randall, Henry, Io. 

Randolph, Edmund, 45, 68, 84, 108, 
249, 314, 320, 327. 

Randolph, Henry, 7. 

Randolph, Isham, Io sqq. 

Randolph, Jane, Io, 14. 

Randolph, John, of Roanoke, 62, 150, 
407, 412-13, 451. 

Randolph, Peyton, 24, 25, 45, 67, 78, 
87; his character, 97. 

Randolph, Sarah N., 10, 575. 

Randolph, Thomas Jefferson, 253, 558, 


573 sqq. 

Randolph, Thomas Mann, 14, 253. 

Randolph, William, 14. 

Raynal, Abbé, 182, 189. 

Red Indians, missionary to, 197. 

Red Indians, their origin, 190. 

Reign of Terror, American, 349. 

Reign of Terror, French, 343. 

Religious Freedom, Jefferson’s Bill for, 
136 sqq. 

Report on Manufactures, 284. 

Republican Party, origin of, 265, 535.’ 

Retrenchment under Jefferson, 388-9. 

Reviewers and Authors, 534. 

Revolutions, 61. 

Rice of Piedmont, 221. 

Richmond, Convention at, 82; raid 
on, 159 sqq.;_ plan of Capitol, 223. 

Rittenhouse, 188, 482. 

Rivanna, 447. 

Roads round Washington described, 
377: 

Roane, Spencer, Judge, 523. 

Robespierre, 279. 

Rochefoucauld, Duke de la, visits 
Monticello, 330 sqq. 

Rolfe, John, 3. 

Rome, ancient slavery in, 192. 

Rush, Benjamin, 455. 

Russia and Turkey at War, 533. 


S 


St. John’s Church, Richmond, 82. 
Sallust, 555. 


Saratoga, 143. 

Schurz, Carl, 453, 526. 

Scotch-Irish, 8. 

Scott, Sir William, 431. 

Search, Right of, 431. 

Sedition Law, 348 sqq.; 
report on, 364 sqq. 

Selden’s Mare Clausum, 505. 

Senate, Jefferson, chairman of, 339 
sqq. 

Serpentine walls, 548, 570. 

Shadwell, 8, 14, 15, 49. 

Shaftesbury, 27. 

Shakespeare, I, 15. 

Shakespeare’s house, 219. 

Shells and Deluge, 186. 

Shenandoah, 184. 

Short, William, 205. 

Skelton, Martha, so. 

Slavery, American, 523 sqq. 

Slavery in Virginia, 48, 135. 

Slaves, importation of, 416-8. 

Slave states, 526. 

Slaves, value of, 525. 

Slave Trade, 73, 120, 123. 

Smallpox, 44. 

Small, William, 24, 25, 26, 87. 

Smith, Adam, 56, 256, 472. 

Smith, Captain John, 2, 3. 

Smith, Robert, 383. 

Smith of Shena, 370. 

Snowdon, Io. 

South Carolina, War in, 145. 

Spanish money, 200 sqq. 

Spanish Republics, 477, 536 sqq. 

Spoils system, 529. 

Stamp Act, 40 sqq., 46, 58. 

State Department, under Jefferson, 
273, 288. 

Staunton, Assembly at, 168, 173. 

Steamboat, Fulton’s, 384. 

Steam engine, 222. 

Steuben, General, 146, 155-6, 158 sqq., 
TOT uaa. 

Stevens, General, 153, 168. 

Stewart, Dugald, 506, 

Stowe, 218, 


Madison’s 


[ 586 | 


Index 


Studies, legal, 36, 37. 

Sully’s portrait of Jefferson, 531. 

Summary View of the Rights of British 
America, A, 68 sqq. 

Sydney, Algernon, 80, 100. 


ah 


Tacitus, 555. 

Talleyrand, 347, 358, 362-3, 408, 410, 
412. 

Tariffs, 302, 489. See Free Trade. 

Tarleton, Colonel, visits Monticello, 
167 sqq. . 

Taxation of Colonies, 47 sqq. 

Taylor, John, 351, 357. 

Tea duty, 59 sqq. 

Temperance, 487. 

Theology in University of Virginia, 550. 

Thompson, John the Hatter, 125. 

Ticknor, George, 484; his description 
of Monticello, 495 sqq.; revisits 
Monticello, 559. 

Tobacco, 2 sqq., 33- 

Torpedoes, Fulton’s, 384. 

Toussaint, 359, 392. 

Townshend, Charles, his budget, 47, 
56. 

Townshend, custom duties, 51, 59. 

Tracy, Destutt, 467, 491. 

Trade, American, with England, 430 
sqq. 

Treasury under Hamilton, 270 sqq., 
291 sqq. 

Treaties, sanctity of, 311 sqq. 

Treaty with England, Jay’s, 326 sqq., 
334. 

Trevelyan, Sir 
168, 179 sqq. 

Trist, Nicholas P., 270, 572-3. 

Trist, Virginia, 512. 

Tuckahoe, 14. 

Tucker, George, 549. 

Turgot, 333. 


George. Note, 


595 


U 


United States, population of, in 1801, 
376. 


University of Virginia, 336-7; foun- 
dation and building of, 542 sqq.; 
architecture of, 546-7; free curricu- 
lum of, 550; its first board of 
visitors, 548; its first professors, 
549; Latin at, 569; opening of, 561; 
School of Botany, $70. 

Utilitarianism, 389, 531. 


Vv 


Van Buren, Martin, 63, 556. 

Vattel, 303, 312-13. 

Vergennes, Count de, 210, 226. 

Virginia, aristocracy of, 6. 

Virginia, British restrictions on trade 
Otayie 

Virginia, Burgesses of, 5-6, 88. 

Virginia, Colonial, 2 sqq.; prosperity 
of, 62 sqq.; Constitution of, 108 
sqq.; _ Jefferson’s description, 182 
sqq.; map of, 10; plants of, 186; 
raids on, 142. 

Virginia, Notes on, 13, 16, 22, 86, 182 
sqq. 

Virginia Resolutions, 354 sqq., 363, 
364-5. 

Virginian Law Reform, 132; Militia, 
163; slavery, 6, I91 sqq. 

Volney, 330, 348. 


Ww 


War between France and England, 309. 

War, borrowing for, 357. 

War debt, 467 sqq. 

War Hawks, 450. 

War with England, Jefferson on, 460-1. 

Washington, city of, described, 377, 
385, 483. ei 

Washington, George, 11, 48, 69, 79, 84, 
85, 91 (appointed Generalissimo), 
136, 142 sqq., 236, 239, 247 sqq., 265 
Sqq:, 306, 313, 322, 346, 366, 556-7; 
his war strategy, 155, 162-3, 166, 
171-2, 288; Jefferson’s character 
of, 483. 


[ 587 ] 


Index 


Wayles, John, 50, 53. Wine, French, 520. 

Wayles, Martha (Mrs. Jefferson, her | Wirt, William, 21, 42, 444, 460. 
death), 181, 199. Workshops at Monticello, 447. 

Webster, Daniel (quoted), 247,| Wythe, George, 23-6, 31-2, 67, 109, 
560. 118, 133. 

Wesley, John, tor. 

West Indies, commerce of, 255. »4 

Whately on gardening, 217. 

Whately, Phyllis, 192. X.Y.Z., letters, 347 sqq., 360. 

Whiskey, 487, 520. 

William and Mary College, 6, 20 sqq., Ng 
134. 

Williamsburg, 6, 7, 21 sqq., 149. Yellow fever at Philadelphia, 317. 


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